Page:New penal code of Siam (Masao T, 1908).pdf/5

 (6)Minor reclusion,

(7)Major detention,

(8)Minor detention,

(9)Imprisonment with work,

(10)Imprisonment without work, and

(11)Police confinement.

The French Penal Code is not quite so bad, but even there we find as many as six different names for imprisonment and seven if deportation is included. But in France deportation is a distinct form of punishment. In Japan it is not. The Japanese Government has found it extremely difficult to make proper provisions for enforcing deportation as a form of punishment distinct from imprisonment. The result is that all the eleven punishments above-mentioned are simply different names for one and the same thing — imprisonment. The only distinctions that can possibly be made are that some are required to work while others are not, and that some prisoners are kept in one jail while others are kept in another. But if these are distinctions they are distinctions that exist everywhere, whether imprisonment is called by one name or by a dozen different names.

With offences divided into classes it is necessary to call imprisonment by a great many different names. But with offences not divided into classes, there is no necessity for complicating matters by calling one and the same thing by so many different names. Consequently, the new Penal Code of Siam has only one name for imprisonment,, it is called by that name only. That is the principal reason why this Code has attained so much simplicity in respect of punishments, and in this respect it compares favorably with the Indian Penal Code under which there are seven punishments, and the new Japanese Penal Code, under which there are also seven punishments. It will be noticed that the Code leaves whipping out of the list of punishments. This is simply recognizing in the Code what already exists as a matter of fact, namely, the fact that in general conformity with the humane sentiments prevailing under the enlightened rule of His Majesty King Chulalongkorn, the Courts have practically put whipping out of use. It is a curious fact that if any voice is heard against the abolition of whipping in Siam it is not so