CANCELED: On the Origins of Limited-Term Sentences of Incarceration

Carceral studies tends to operate with a model that imagines the birth of the prison and the limited-term prison sentence as happening in the late 18th century in Europe and North America. This lecture challenges this model by showing evidence of limited-term sentences of incarceration in Late Antiquity. It explores the historical context of the emergence of placing criminalized persons in carceral geographies for a certain amount of time. It connects the origins of limited-term sentences of incarceration to practices of convict labor and to emerging Christian ideas of hell and punishment.