Imprisonment. Imprisonment is one of the three classes of punishment for crime, death and penal servitude being the other two. Under certain statutes the punishment of whipping also may be adjudged to juvenile offenders or persons convicted of assaults with violence. It has always been a power inherent in courts of justice to imprison for contempt of their authority, and until lately for non-payment of debt. In criminal proceedings a person may, by a warrant of a justice of peace or magistrate, be imprisoned before trial, provided the justice considers it is not a proper case for allowing bail; and though in minor offences an accused person may insist on being discharged on tendering sufficient bail, yet in more serious crimes it is in the discretion of the justice to accept or refuse the bail tendered, and on his refusal application may be made to judges of the common law courts to accept bail. In Scotland, when such review is resorted to under the Criminal Procedure Act of 1887, or the Act to amend the Law of Bail, 1888, the court as a general rule leaves the prosecutor's discretion as to bail-ability untouched, and in England the same rule obtains. In both countries the supreme courts will interfere where the question is merely one of amount, or where malice or oppression on the part of the prosecutor is averred; but in Scotland, owing to the system of official as distinguished from private prosecution, such grounds are rarely advanced in support of an application for bail. Imprisonment may be with or without hard labour, or it may be solitary. Every prisoner sentenced to undergo a long term passes a period in solitary confinement, and it is in the power of prison governors to order a return to this, which is considered the hardest part of the term, for any gross breach of discipline. The statutory limit of imprisonment is two years. Penal servitude may be inflicted for life, or any shorter term, but in the case both of imprisonment and penal servitude the convict can at any time, and repeatedly within certain limits, apply to the Home Secretary in England, and to the Scottish Secretary in Scotland, for commutation or remission. The documents are forwarded to the judge who tried his case, and the secretaries are guided in their decision by the report which the judge furnishes. In the general case a fourth or a third is deducted from all terms of penal servitude as a matter of course where the convict has complied with prison rules. In police and other petty offences tried summarily at common law and under a variety of statutes, imprisonment is usually awarded with the option of a fine (discretionary in amount), excepting the case of theft; but all other offences tried before recorder and quarter sessions in England and the sheriff and jury in Scotland are visited with imprisonment, although in a few isolated examples statute gives an option. The unlawful detention of the person by any one, or 'false imprisonment' (in Scotland, 'wrongous'), constitutes a personal injury, and may be treated as a criminal or as a civil offence. When persons tried and convicted are afterwards proved to have been innocent, compensation may be awarded to them, along with a formal 'pardon.'
The subject of imprisonment for debt is discussed at DEBT, Vol. III. p. 717.