The journal of prison discipline and philanthropy (New series, No. 57), March, 1918Pennsylvania Prison Society
History
The journal of prison discipline and philanthropy (New series, No. 57), March, 1918
Pennsylvania Prison Society
Charities -- Periodicals; Prisons -- Periodicals
The distinction just mentioned is, however, no stranger than that made
by the code between a councilman on the one hand and a judge on the
other, in the provisions against bribery. Section 48 of the Act of
1860 provides that if any judge * * * shall accept a bribe, he shall
be fined not more than $1000 and be imprisoned for not more than five
years. But by Section 8 of the Act of 1874, a councilman who accepts
a bribe may be fined $10,000, ten times as much as a judge, and be
imprisoned the same number of years--five years. The statute also
provides that the councilman shall be incapable of holding any place
of profit or trust in this Commonwealth thereafter. But the convicted
judge is placed under no such disability.
Relations of Fine to Imprisonment.
In the case of almost every crime denounced by the code fine and
imprisonment are associated. In most cases the penalty provided is
fine and imprisonment, in some it is fine or imprisonment. In a few
cases imprisonment alone without a fine is prescribed, and in a few
others it is a fine alone without imprisonment. We seek in vain for
any principle on which the fine is omitted, where it is omitted; or
for a principle on which it is inflicted in addition to imprisonment
in some cases, and as an alternative to imprisonment in others. Thus
the penalty for exhibiting indecent pictures on a wall in a public
place is a fine of $300, but no imprisonment, while by the same act
the drawing of such pictures on the same wall carries a fine of $500
and one year’s imprisonment. Manslaughter carries a fine of $1000 as
well as imprisonment for twelve years, but train robbery and murder
in the second degree involve no fine, but fifteen and twenty years in
prison respectively. It cannot be the length of the imprisonment that
does away with the fine in this latter case, for the crime of aiding in
kidnapping may be punished with twenty-five years in prison, but also
has a fine of $5000.
More striking still, perhaps, is the lack of any relation between the
amount of the fine and the length of the imprisonment provided in the
code. In the case of some crimes the fine is small and the imprisonment
short, as in blasphemy, which is punished by a fine of $100 and three
months in prison, extortion and embracery punished with $500 and one
year. In a few the fine is large and the imprisonment long, as in
accepting bribes by councilmen, $10,000 and five years, and malicious
injury to railroads, $10,000 and ten years. But in others the fine is
small while the imprisonment is long and in others the fine large and
the imprisonment short.
Incomplete Crimes.
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