The Criminal Codes and Penal Institutions of Colonial Pennsylvania

Abstract

In order to interpret intelligently the content and significance of the criminal codes of colonial Pennsylvania it is necessary to understand the general nature of criminal jurisprudence at the time, and the relation that the Pennsylvania codes bore to the prevailing trends in contemporary criminal law.1 Judged by presentday standards, the criminal laws of colonial times were extremely severe in the penalties they prescribed. A much larger number of capital crimes existed than are listed on the statute books of today. From ten to eighteen crimes, for which the death penalty was prescribed, was usual in the colonial period. The situation in England was, of course, far worse. There, at the close of the eighteenth century, some three hundred capital crimes were specified. Even more striking is the difference in penalties prescribed for crimes not capital. Instead of imprisonment some form of corporal punishment or fines was imposed. Imprisonment, as a method of punishment, was first permanently applied in this country in the period following 1789 in Pennsylvania. In general, it may be said that the criminal codes of colonial Pennsylvania passed through three major transformations. The English or Puritan system was first introduced in 1676. This was superseded by the mild and humane Quaker code of 1682, which was a new and revolutionary departure in criminal jurisprudence. On account of friction over the Quaker demand for