These have in general been distinguished from their civilian equivalent by the fact that they are very task-specific. In the Roman army, the first military organization which we know to have had a formal code of discipline, if a sentry was found guilty of being asleep on duty or absent without cause he was sentenced to the fustuarium. The sentenced man was then set upon by soldiers of his own unit with cudgels and stones and usually killed. The severity of this punishment had a certain military logic to it because a sentry who sleeps endangers the lives of all his comrades. The same punishment was also imposed for theft in the camp, giving false testimony, and on any soldier found guilty of the same minor offence four times. If a unit was found guilty of cowardice, the men were paraded in front of the legion and every tenth man subjected to the fustuarium, a process known as decimation (the origin of this much-misused word in English).
The fustuarium illustrates a basic function of military punishment. It has to serve as retribution for an offence, as a deterrent to the offender and his fellows, and it must serve to reinforce unit cohesion. It is also part of a necessary process of brutalization, so that soldiers will not if possible even feel the second part of the fight or flight instinct in the presence of the enemy. Frederick ‘the Great’ declared that ‘the common soldier must fear his officer more than the enemy’, and his army inflicted a wide range of savage punishments to errant soldiers. These included ‘riding the wooden horse’ in which the offender sat astride a sharp-backed wooden horse with weights attached to his feet. Recalling the fustuarium was ‘running the gauntlet’ where the prisoner had to walk between two ranks of soldiers who lashed him as he passed. A Prussian general noted that those sentenced to 36 runs usually died, and a ‘flogging around the fleet’ in the Royal Navy was equally fatal, with the macabre added touch that the corpse would continue to be flogged beside every ship until all had witnessed the butchery. The Piedmontese military code, the basis for Italian army discipline until WW II, included the provision that cowards would be shot in the back, yet another example of the harsh logic of military punishment.
For two thousand years or more, armies and navies relied heavily on corporal punishment, ranging from ‘starting’ with a cane for minor errors in drill or deportment, to spreadeagling and exposure to the mockery of one's fellows, to whipping for more important offences. Serious offences against military discipline, especially in the face of the enemy, carried the death penalty. All of these punishments were performed in the presence of the offenders' military unit and were seen simply in terms of minatory retribution and deterrence. But military justice was also personal and often tempered by the fact that the more persistent offenders, especially in matters of alcohol, were often known to be excellent combat soldiers.
Prisons of any kind are a relatively recent phenomenon, military prisons reflecting (and usually lagging behind) changes in perceptions of appropriate punishments for crimes in the broader society. With the advent of penology, the concept of incapacitation, which in earlier times had meant mutilation (amputation or branding) was extended to incarceration and by the 1840s prisons were being built in much of Europe and the USA. Previously, as in the notorious prison hulks rotting in the estuaries of England, people were incarcerated only because their sentence of deportation was never carried out and in the rare event that they survived, they would be released at the end of the term imposed. Prisons were seen as a humane alternative and eventually the reforming tide swept over the military.
With penology and prisons came the idea of rehabilitation, again somewhat inappropriate given the difference in civilian and military perceptions of undesirable character traits. Thus military prisons, universally known as ‘glasshouses’ from about the turn of the century, stuck to retribution and deterrence. They were physically harsh, but did not indulge in the subtler tortures that characterized civilian prisons run by enlightened reformers. The basic urge of the military is to rid its ranks of undesirables and today serious offenders are sent to civil institutions, while the provost staff corps runs the military prisons. Famous military prisons include the one outside Alexandria in WW II on which the film The Hill was based, while the US Marines featured in The Brig. The most famous US military prison is in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, not far from the US army General Staff College, a source of much ironic commentary over the years.
— Chris Mann/Richard Holmes
