Abstract
Mitchel P. Roth’s book An Eye for an Eye revolves around the questions what is crime and how has crime been punished in different societies over time. This is a topic of interest for historians, criminologists, and law scholars alike. The book adopts a legalistic approach, as Roth defines crime as “what is or is not against the law” (p. 9). The analytical strategy used in the book is centered on the study of crime in different legal traditions. This not only gives coherence to the book but it also enriches this historical journey.
The book is organized in nine chapters. The first two chapters portray crime and punishment in ancient societies. Chapter 1 describes the Code of King Hammurabi as “the first attempt to control private vengeance” (p. 26) in the Mesopotamian region (today Iraq) around 5,000 years ago. In the Code, which contains 282 sections, punishment was inflicted in the form of revenge, “an eye for an eye.” The Code influenced further developments of Hebrew law (also known as Mosaic law), which includes 36 capital crimes punishable by different forms of execution such as burning, stoning, and decapitation. In the seventh century BCE, the Greeks introduced Draco’s Code, which prescribed the use of the death penalty for almost every offense. For example, quoting Plutarch, Roth indicates that “even those who stole salad or fruit received the same punishment as those who committed sacrilege or murder … Draco’s laws were written not in ink, but blood” (p. 39).
Chapter 2 introduces the reader to the four legal traditions that provide the main foundations for today’s legal system in most nations in the world. Roth claims that the Roman civil legal tradition, the English common-law tradition, the Islamic legal tradition, and the Chinese legal tradition “were transported to the far corners of the globe, either by conquest or colonization, were they subsequently modified in one way or another due to the often diverse conditions of their new homes” (p. 49). The rich descriptions provided in the book illustrate each of these systems to a greater extent. Roth reports, for instance, that in the Roman tradition adulterers were deported, but under the rule of the Christian emperor, all forms of sexual immorality became capital crimes. Codes of Anglo-Saxon life in Britain were rooted in the principle that everyone has a price. Roth writes “[e]ach body part had a value; loss of an eye was worth half the price of a man. The loss of a tooth causing disfigurement was worth 16 shillings, but a back tooth only half that” (p. 59). Under Islamic law, less serious crimes such as eating pork, false testimony, usury, drinking wine, and tampering with scales were sanctioned with flagellation, while bloody intentional crimes were punished with compensation to a victim or family, in contrast to robbery, which was sanctioned with amputation or beheading. During the Shang Dynasty, the Chinese legal code dealt with, among other crimes, theft and robbery, which were sanctioned with corporal punishment such as tattooed faces, amputated noses and parts of the feet, and castration.
Chapter 3 discusses crime in feudal societies and the “development of the criminal justice machinery,” characterized by a dual system of ecclesiastic and secular courts. The next chapter examines the transformation of punishment and the rise of the penitentiary. Roth states that while public executions declined, the use of workhouses and penitentiaries became an extended practice “first only in countries that could afford to build and maintain them” (p. 110). These forms of sentence coexisted with corporal punishment, transportation overseas, and exile. The following three chapters focus on specific types of crime, which the author approaches in various jurisdictions. Chapter 5 turns the attention to banditry as a form of an early organized crime, as the activities require “some degree of organization and cooperation” (p. 147). Roth locates the emerging of these groups in rural settings in contrast to sea pirates, slave traders, and contraband smugglers who were involved in international criminal organizations, as he argues in the subsequent chapter. Chapter 7 deals with murder, infanticide, mass murder, and serial killing among others.
Chapter 8 examines how punishment was manifested in post-Colonial territories. In this section, Roth’s description connects with the earlier legal traditions introduced in Chapter 2. For example, in countries with civil legal tradition, prisons were introduced at different times. In Brazil, prisons were constructed in 1834 and in Chile in 1843, while in Colombia and Cuba construction occurred a century later (1934 and 1939, respectively). “The debate on the death penalty and corporal punishment, punishments abolished in Britain, are still on the books in a number of its former Caribbean colonies” (p. 231). The common law was also followed in Malaysia and Singapore, but these countries “use a more draconian system of punishment for what they consider serious crimes” (p. 243). For instance, drug trafficking and selling or possession of firearms are considered capital offenses.
The last chapter deals with crime and punishment in the 21st century. Roth recounts new forms of crime such as the illegal transferring of human organs, financial crimes, and cybercrimes, while noticing that “age-old criminality continues.” For example, piracy is still present in societies where weak governments cannot control their own territory. Cases of witchcraft have been recently reported in New Guinea (in 2012) and Spain (in 2013). Finally, he raises concerns about controversial issues. Roth notes that “[i]n at least 78 countries, the majority in the Muslim world, Africa and developing nations, homosexual sex is still treated as a crime” (p. 266). Capital punishment is still in use in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. In Somalia and Bangladesh, rape victims are punished “for engaging in illegal sex, by lashing or stoning” (p. 281). In North Korea, inmates are forced into hard labor in copper mines while living in prisons exposed to “murder, enslavement, torture, rape, forced abortions and persecution on religious, racial and political grounds” (p. 285).
Throughout the book, Roth puts forward the idea that punishment has been inflicted according to the social class or political rank of the perpetrator. For example, Roth notes how citizens of the Roman Empire were given quick deaths with a single blow in contrast to noncitizens and slaves who were meted out sadistic death by slow execution or crucifixion by asphyxiation, which can take from 4 hr to 4 days. During medieval times, conflicts were resolved with fines and restitution between those of high status, while the poor were subject to cruel corporal and capital punishment. In continental Europe, Roth notes that until “the 1790s hanging was preserved for the poor, beheading for the rich and the brutality of the wheel for religious offences” (p. 118). In the colonies, the civil law tradition had a similar tone. In “New Spain” (today Mexico), a 1735 ordinance prescribed that the minimum punishment for crimes such as robbery, violence, and arson was for Spaniards “six years’ incarceration in a presidio prison; for mestizos, six years in a workhouse and 200 lashes” (p. 227). In the last decades, imprisonment has been used in countries like Russia, North Korea, and China to neutralize the political opposition, which has been denoted as a “new generation” of criminals.