PENAL-SERVITUDE. This punishment has come in place of the former punishment by transportatimt, said to have been first inflicted by atat. 39 Eliz. c. 4. The first act of parliament on this subject is the 18 Car. II. c. 3, a. 2, enabling the judge of assize to transport cer tain offenders to America, there to remain and not to return.
The 22 Car. II. c. 5, s. 4, gave the judges power, "at their discre tion," to grant a reprieve, and to cause felons to be transported beyond the seas, there to remain for the space of seven years ; but if the offender refused to be transported, or returned within the time, then he was to be put to execution upon the judgment. The 22 & 23 Car.
II. c. 7, a. 4, directed a judgment of transportation to be entered, when the felon elected to be transported, and it authorised the sheriffs to cause offenders to be embarked. It also made a return before the expiration of the sentence, a capital felony. The next statute on the subject was the act 4 aco. I. c. 11, " the foundation of the law of transportation," which enacted that, when the crown should be pleased to extend mercy, upon condition of transportation to any part of America, any court, having proper authority to do so, might direct the offender to be transported. The stat. 6 Geo. I. c. 23, again made a person " at large in Great Britain, before the expiration of the term " of transportation, liable, on conviction, to suffer death. The 8 Geo. Ill. c. 15, extended the powers of the judges to make orders for trans portation by enabling them to do so out of court ; and by the stat.
30 Geo. III. c. 47, the king was empowered to authorise the governors of convict settlements to remit the sentences of transports.
By the stat. 5 Geo. IV. c. 84 (amended by 11 Geo. IV. and I Wm. IV. c. 39), consolidating the laws on the subject of transportation, the king in council was empowered to appoint places beyond the seas, to which persons under sentence of transportation should be conveyed, the governor or other person to whom they were delivered, or his assignee, having the property in the service of the convicts. The sovereign was also empowered by warrant to appoint places of confinement at home, either on land or on board vessels in the Thames, or other rivers or harbours, for the confinement of male offenders (extended by the stat. 16 & 17 Vict. to females) under sentence of death, but re prieved or respited, or under sentence of transportation, there to remain under order of the secretary of state until entitled to their liberty, or removed, or otherwise dealt with. The capital punishmeut for offenders found unduly at large before the expiration of their sentence was subsequently abolished by 4 & 5 Wm. IV. c. 67, which substituted transportation for life, with previous imprisonment not exceeding four years.
New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land, and Norfolk Island, thus became the principal receptacles for convicts. Although the property in the services of these persons was vested in the colonial governor or his assigns, a practice prevailed of granting them, in certain eases and on certain conditions, permission to employ themselves for their own benefit. These permissions were usually called "tickets of leave." By the stat. 6 & 7 Vict. c. 7, the legislature, thinking it just that ticket-of leave convicts should be protected in their persons, and in the posses sion of such property as they might acquire by their industry, em powered them to hold personal property, and to maintain actions in respect thereof while such tickets remained unrevoked.
The reception of convicts having, however, become distasteful to the inhabitants of the colonies, the stat. 10 & Vict. c. 67, was passed, permitting offenders under sentence of transportation to be removed to any prison or penitentiary in Great Britain ; directors of the principal convict prisons being appointed afterwards under the gat. 13 & 14 Viet. e. 39. The difficulty attending the reception by the colonies of transported convicts having increased, the stat. 16 & 17 Viet. c. 99, finally abolished the punishment of transportation for less than fourteen years, and substituted penal servitude at home for certain periods, giving the courts power in all cases to substitute such penal servitude for transportation.
Before this last statute was passed, a system had for some time pre vailed with respect to well-conducted convicts (who, although sentenced to transportation, had been kept at home), of granting them free par dons, generally at the expiration of half their sentence of transportation. As the continuance of the same system under the last-mentioned statute seemed likely to cause serious evils, but as it was at the same time desirable to encourage good behaviour in convicts, it was deter mined to try the experiment of retaining some control over them iu CAMS where they were set at liberty before the expiration of their original sentence. With that view the statute empowers the crown, by order of one of the secretaries of state,lo grant any convict a licence or "ticket of leave," to be at largo during such portion of his term of transportation or imprisonment, and upon such conditions, as may be thought fit, such licence being also revocable at pleasure.
Finally by the stet. 20 & 21 Viet. c. 3, the sentence of transportation is entirely abolished, and the sentence of penal servitude substituted ; but the statutes which have reference to transportation are to have reference to penal servitude, so that the name alone is changed.
As to the government of convict prisons in the colonies, see 22 Viet. c. 25.