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SECTION XIV.: OF PUNISHMENTS. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 4 [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 4.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

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SECTION XIV.

OF PUNISHMENTS.

On this head, I shall not at present be minute: with regard to particulars, a few hints may serve—principles have been laid down in another work.*

Punishments may be increased in number without end, without being increased in severity; they may be diversified with advantage by being adapted to the nature of the case.

One mode of analogy is, the pointing the punishment against the faculty abused: another is, ordering matters so that the punishment shall flow, as of itself, from the offending cause. Outrageous clamour may be subdued and punished by gagging; manual violence, by the strait waistcoat; refusal to work, by a denial of food till the task is done. The Spartan discipline may, on this head, furnish a hint for the management of a penitentiary-house, without pushing the imitation so far as to make want of dexterity a capital offence, or treating British criminals with the degree of severity said to be practised by Spartan parents on their innocent children.

Here, if anywhere, is the place for the law of mutual responsibility to show itself to advantage. Confined within the boundary of each cell, it can never transgress the limits of the strictest justice. Either inform, or suffer as an accomplice. What artifice can elude, what conspiracy withstand, so just, yet inexorable a law? The reproach, which in every other abode of guilt attaches itself with so much virulence to the character of the informer, would find nothing here to fasten upon; the very mouth of complaint would be stopt by self-preservation—“I a betrayer? I unkind? Your’s is the unkindness, who call upon me to smart for your offence, and suffer for your pleasure.” Nowhere else could any such plea support itself—nowhere else is connivance so perfectly exposed to observation. This one stone was wanting to complete the fortress reared by the inspection principle: so many comrades, so many inspectors; the very persons to be guarded against are added to the number of the guards. Observe here, too, another advantage of limited association over absolute solitude. In an ordinary prison, society is a help to transgression: in the cell of a Panopticon, it is an additional security for good behaviour.

Covered with the rust of antiquity, the law of mutual responsibility has stood for ages the object of admiration. Fresh from the hands of Alfred, or whoever else first gave it existence, what was the composition of this celebrated law? Nine grains of iniquity to one of justice. Ten heads of families, with walls, woods, and hills between them, each to answer for the transgressions of every other! How different the case under the dominion of the inspection principle! Here shines justice in unclouded purity. Were the Saxon law to be reduced to the same standard, what would be the founder’s task? To give transparency to hills, woods, and walls, and to condense the contents of a township into a space of 14 feet square.

[* ]Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 4to, 1789.

[]A boy was not to have his breakfast till he had shot it off a tree.