Introduction – functions of penalties

The product of an effectively functioning law-enforcement system is captured suspected criminals, but this product is merely a means to a further end, the reduction to a tolerable level of socially threatening deviance. Insofar as the presence of law-enforcement agents actually discourages the commission of crimes, it directly contributes to the larger goal. The captured criminals pose a different problem: Assuming that they are found guilty, how should they then be treated? What sort of treatment will contribute most to the general aim of creating a society not threatened by serious deviance? More exactly, given the array of options that the ruling group can envision as both possible and acceptable, and within the constraints set by organizational skills, technology, fiscal limitations, and competing state goals, what responses will be most useful? For the majority of those captured and convicted, this comes down to the question of how they are to be punished. The answers given in a specific culture are bounded in part by contemporaries' visions of their own past history; in trying to understand their own time they look at the evolution from their cultural past to the present.

The levels of punishment exacted in traditional China reflected a vision of the past and how the current practices evolved, the ideas of state leaders about the uses of penalties, and a perception of the current historical situation. Penalties are seen as useful in both internal and external terms. Internally, they might create a more stable and peaceful society. By reflection the resulting good order helps in the competition with external enemies.