Pre-modern crime and criminal justice

Question 1

How was crime explained in pre-modern legal systems?

Answer 1

by spiritualist notions

Question 2

What did St. Thomas Aquinas argue?

Answer 2

Argued that there was a given “natural- law” that is revealed by observing- through the eyes of faith- the natural tendency of people to do good rather than evil.

Question 3

Those who violated the criminal law were also…?

Answer 3

sinners

Question 4

Why did crime also damage the offender?

Answer 4

because it damages their essential “humannes” or natural tendency to do good rather than evil.

Question 5

Demonology

Answer 5

criminals were believed to be possessed by demons, no belief in rehabilitation

Question 6

How would crimes be punished?

Answer 6

With torture until death

Question 7

What was the emphasis of punishment?

Answer 7

was more on the physical body of the accused (since the offender was possesed by a demon).

Question 8

The mob

Answer 8

The materially dispossed classes. Punishment served as a threat to them

Question 9

Was imprisionment used?

Answer 9

No, little use was made of imprisionment in the pre-modern era

Question 10

What was the aim of the rural aristocracy?

Answer 10

to demonstrate their power to the lower class

Question 11

How was the administration of the criminal justice?

Answer 11

non-codified, irrational and irregular and at the whim of individual judgment.