Analysis Of The Prison System In The Song Dynasty

Prison in China has long history, and the prison system also has developed step by step as the country came about. The prison system in the Song dynasty, shows a lot of new features on the succession of the Tang prison system.Types of Ancient Chinese prison are divided into detention and penal servitude. Detention, is given corporal punishment and the death penalty as the main penalty system; while prisoners in penal servitude prison are "served for Day, arrested in the night." The penal system, evolved from the original torture for thousands of years. The Five Penalties of Chinese slavery society, containing tattooed the face or branded the forehead, cut off the nose, cut off the feet, Gong, Da pi is a corporal punishment system which is based on "broken limbs, carved the skin" as the main feature. The system is based on humiliation punishment, so the prison whose function is detention and penal servitude at that time can not be too well-developed, as well as this corresponding prison system.The Five Penalties of Chinese feudal society is established in the Sui dynasty, containing whipping, Zhang, imprisonment, banishment, and death penalty. The epoch-making progressive point is the establishment of imprisonment and banishment. The Tang dynasty inherited the Five Penalties, and established the banishment with corvee, which means the the offender also need to servitude. But in the Tang dynasty, the prison is still a detention-based one.Because of the special background of the Song dynasty, the Penalty of Banishing as a Military Servant has been widely used. Correspondingly, penal servitude also progresses, and becomes more and more developed. A set of comprehensive penal servitude system has been founded gradually. Take the implementation of the locations which is called the prison city for example. There is a three-order system of the inside prison city, the military prison city far away, and the island prison city. Therefore, the prison system in the Song dynasty shows the typical characteristics of well-developed penal servitude.Meanwhile, in the Song dynasty, the management system of prisoners and the the responsibility system of prison officials have also been developed farther. The former has some requirements which is more detailed and more human-based. The latter also provides very detailed and comprehensive requirements. Making full use of this literature synthesis and empirical analysis, in the collection, analysis and research of a large number of official history information, the paper tried to show the overview of the prison system and sketch its own characteristics. This paper also use the method of comparative study, putting the related prison system in the Tang dynasty and Song dynasty together as a comparison, in order to interpret and summarize the characteristics of the prison system in the Song dynasty more accurately.This paper has three parts. The first part is about the legislation outlined in the Song dynasty's prison system. The second part details the specific content of the prison system in the Song dynasty, including two sides, the prison setting and the development and changes of the prison management system. The third part summarizes the typical characteristics of the Song dynasty's prison system, which include a large full-scale prison setting, the more mature prison management system and a well-developed penal servitude. Conclusion says something about the practical implementation of the Song dynasty's prison system and the reference of historical significance.