Prevention History of Corrections—Punishment or Rehabilitation? - Ancient Times

Many ancient cultures allowed the victim or a member of the victim's family to deliver justice. The offender often fled to his or her family for protection. As a result, blood feuds developed in which the victim's family sought revenge against the offender's family. Sometimes the offender's family responded by striking back. Retaliation could continue until the families tired of killing or stealing from each other or until one or both families were destroyed or financially ruined.

As societies organized into tribes and villages, local communities increasingly began to assume the responsibility for punishing crimes against the community and its members. Punishments could be brutal—the condemned boiled in oil or fed to wild beasts. The development of writing led to the creation of lists of crimes and their respective punishments. The Code of Hammurabi in Babylon (circa 1750 B.C.E.) is generally considered the first such set of laws. The laws of Moses, as recorded in the Bible, also cited offenses against the community and their corresponding punishments. The Justinian Code of Emperor Justinian of the Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire (529–565) organized many of the early codes.

As empires developed, the owners of large tracts of land, and later the rulers, wanted a more orderly legal system than blood feuds and thus established courts. Such courts often sentenced the offender to slavery in the victim's family for several years as restitution for the offense. Other punishments included laboring on public works projects, banishment, or even death.