Punishment and Social Structure

Otto Kirchheimer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351495394
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Criminologie

Why are certain methods of punishment adopted or rejected in a given social situation? To what extent is the development of penal methods determined by basic social relations? The answers to these questions are complex, and go well beyond the thesis that institutionalized punishment is simply for the protection of society. While today's punishment of offenders often incorporates aspects of psychology, psychiatry, and sociology, at one time there was a more pronounced difference in criminal punishment based on class and economics. Punishment and Social Structure originated from an article written by Georg Rusche in 1933 entitled "Labor Market and Penal Sanction: Thoughts on the Sociology of Criminal Justice." Originally published in Germany by the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research, this article became the germ of a theory of criminology that laid the groundwork for all subsequent research in this area. Rusche and Kirchheimer look at crime from an historical perspective, and correlate methods of punishment with both temporal cultural values and economic conditions. The authors classify the history of crime into three primary eras: the early Middle Ages, in which penance and fines were the predominant modes of punishment; the later Middle Ages, in which harsh corporal punishment and capital punishment moved to the forefront; and the seventeenth century, in which the prison system was more fully developed. They also discuss more recent forms of penal practice, most notably under the constraints of a fascist state.The majority of the book was translated from German into English, and then reshaped by Rusche's co-author, Otto Kirchheimer, with whom Rusche actually had little discussion. While the main body of Punishment and Social Structure are Rusche's ideas, Kirchheimer was responsible for bringing the book more up-to-date to include the Nazi and fascist era. Punishment and Social Structure is a pioneering work that sets a paradigm for the study of crime and punishment.

Notes

Notes

Chapter I

1. Georg von Mayr, Die Gleichmässigkeit im Gesellschaftsleben (München, 1877); Statistik und Gesellschaftslehre, Vol. Ill, Moralstatistik mit Einschluss der Kriminalstatistik (Tübingen, 1917). On Quetelet's work see R. Wassermann, Die Entwicklungsphasen der kriminalstatistischen Forschung (Leipzig, 1927), pp. 10-40.

2. L. Günther, Die Idee der Widervergeltung in der Geschichte und Philosophic des Strafrechts (3 vols.; Erlangen, 1889-95). Books like R. His, Das Strafrecht des deutschen Mittelalters (2 vols.; Leipzig and Weimar, 1920-35), which give an extraordinary exposition of the various criminal laws and regulations, but always within the categories accepted at the time of writing, are virtually useless for an examination of the relationship between systems of punishment and social order. See the pertinent criticism of E. Schmidt in his review of His in the Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtsivissenschaft, LV (1936), 429-32.

3. See, for example, the typical study of E. Durkheim, "Deux lois de l'évolution pénale," L'Année sociologique, IV (1899-1900), 65-95.

4. R. von Ihering, Der Zweck im Recht (2d ed.; Leipzig, 1884), I, 492, says that anyone who places the social goods on one side and punishments on the other has the value-scale of society.

Chapter II

1. See the interesting remarks of Gustav Radbruch in "Stand und Strafrecht," Schweizer Zeitschrift für Strafrecht, III (1934-35), 17-30. especially p. 19.

2. See J. Kulischer, Allgemeine Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit (München, 1928), I, 128-35; G. Schmoller, Grundriss der allgemeinen Volkswirtschaftslehre (Leipzig, 1904), II, 513; Max Weber, General Economic History, tr. by F. H. Knight (New York, 1927), pp. 132-33.

3. W. S. Holdsworth, A History of English Law (3d ed.; London, 1922-24), II, 36.

4. P. Vinogradolf, "Wergeld und Stand," Collected Papers (Oxford, 1928), II, 84-152.

5. Radbruch, op. cit.; C. R. Köstlin, Geschichte des deutschen Strafrechts im Umriss (Tübingen, 1859), p. 113.

6. Art. 4 of the coutumier de Sion of the year 1338, quoted in J. Graven, Essai sur l'évolution du droit pénal valaisan (Lausanne, 1927), pp. 266-67.

7. J. Goebel, Jr., Felony and Misdemeanor, I (New York, 1937), 237.

8. Holdsworth, op. cit., Ill, 242. The same picture is revealed in a complaint mentioned in the Recess of Courten, dated Dec. 14, 1543, where it is protested that the governors impose excessive fines and legal costs on their subjects. This is easily comprehensible in view of the practice of dividing revenue under these two heads between judges and justiciaries; see Graven, op. cit., pp. 208-13.

9. A. Doren, Italienische Wirtschaftsgeschichte, I (Jena, 1934), 577, writes in this connection: "The system of fines is already at an advanced state of evolution in the direction o£ its present position in the administration of criminal law. In essence we are already far removed from the composition system of German laws. Fiscal considerations are clearly perceptible in the town and guild statutes." For the same development in England see J. C. Fox, The History of Contempt of Court, the Form of Trial and the Mode of Punishment (Oxford, 1927), p. 138; for France, R. Garraud, Traité théorique et pratique du droit pénal français (2d ed.; Paris, 1898), I, 111. Most recently, Goebel, op. cit., pp. 133, 222, 227n., 228, and 236, has emphasized the exclusively fiscal character of seignorial justice.

10. R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (London, 1926), p. 86. In Florence in 1380, 17,000 out of a total population of about 90,000 were dependent on charity; see G. Dahm, Das Strafrecht ltaliens im ausgehenden Mittelalter (Berlin, 1931), p. 23.

11. G. von Below, Probleme der Wirtschaftsgeschichte (Tübingen, 1920), p. 443.

12. F. G. Knapp, Die Bauernbefreiung und der Ursprung der Landarbeiter in den älteren Theilen Preussens (Leipzig, 1887), I, 43-44.

13. More, Utopia with the "Dialogue of Comfort" (London, 1928), p. 23.

14. W. Andreas, Deutsch/and vor de1· Reformation (Stuttgart, 1932), pp. 370-71.

15. G. Steinhausen, Geschichte der deutschen Kultur (3d rev. ed.; Leipzig, 1929), p. 312.

16. Andreas, op. cit., p. 289.

17. E. Frohneberg, Bevölkerungslehre und Bevölkerungspolitik des Merkantilismus (Frankfurt, 1930), p. 17.

18. J. Strieder, Zur Genesis des modernen Kapitalismus (2d ed.; München, 1935), p. VIII,

19. Tawney, op. cit., p. 86. Doren, op. cit., I, 66o, takes a very similar view of the conditions prevailing in the Italian towns of this period. It is worth noting that he, too, describes the guilds as a cover and instrument for the policy of the employers. He writes that the proletariat was strangled by its inability to obtain raw materials and working instruments, by the law, and by the regulations of the guilds which admitted workers to membership with no rights whatever; the proletariat was held captive by the state, definitely a class state which acted as protector for the interests united in the large capitalist guilds; it was held down by legal restrictions on the right of association and thus prevented from improving its condition by lawful means. F. Rörig, "Die europäische Stadt," Propyläen Weltgeschichte, IV (Berlin, 1932), 324-26, writes similarly of the Flemish towns.

20. T. Somerlad, "Zur Geschkhte der Preise," Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, VI (4th ed.; Jena, 1925), 1037-55.

21. Schmoller, op. cit., II, 295. According to Lamprecht's calculation, the average wage of a carpenter in the years 1277-84 was 3.43 g. silver; this rose in 1344-45 to 6.84 g.; then the fall set in and by 1465 it had sunk to 3.20 g., and in 1497 stood at 2.50 g.; see Somerlad, op. cit., p. 1042.

22. E. Bielschowsky, Die sozialen und ökonomischen Grundlagen des modernen gewerblichen Schlichtungswesens und seine · Bedeutung für die Lösung der sozialen Frage (Berlin, 1921), p. 30.

23. J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages, tr. by F. Hopman (London, 1927), p. 21.

24. Radbruch, op. cit., p. 21.

25. Gandinus, Tractatus de maleficiis, ed. by Hermann Kantorowicz in Albertus Gandinus und das Strafrecht der Scholastik (Berlin and Leipzig, 1926), II, 347-48; cf. Dahm, op. cit., pp. 23-28; H. Gwinner, Der Einfluss des Standes im gemeinen Strafrecht (Breslau-Neukirch, 1934), pp. 18-21.

26. Clagspiegel, ed. by Sebastian Brant (Strassburg, 1538), folio 131. R. von Hippel, Deutsches Strafrecht (Berlin, 1925), I, 128-29, confirms this process which is well known to all historians of criminal law. He writes that the injured party could come to an agreement with the offender, even in the case of an offense punishable by law, by requiring him to make...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• TABLES
• INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSACTION EDITION
• FOREWORD
• PREFACE
• I. INTRODUCTION
• II. SOCIAL CONDITIONS AND PENAL ADMINISTRATION IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES
• III. MERCANTILISM AND THE RISE OF IMPRISONMENT
• IV. CHANGES IN THE FORM OF PUNISHMENT
• V. DEVELOPMENTS IN CRIMINAL THEORY AND LAW DURING THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT
• VI. SOCIAL AND PENAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
• VII. THE ABOLITION OF TRANSPORTATION
• VIII. THE FAILURE OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT
• IX. MODERN PRISON REFORM AND ITS LIMITS
• X. THE FINE IN RECENT PENAL PRACTICE
• XI. NEW TRENDS IN PENAL POLICY UNDER FASCISM
• XII. PENAL POLICY AND CRIME RATE
• XIII. CONCLUSION
• NOTES
• INDEX