This book offers a comprehensive global examination of physical punishment across civilizations and eras.

Moving beyond Western-centric perspectives, the work analyzes how corporal and capital punishment functioned not merely as legal enforcement tools but as powerful mechanisms for social control and political-religious dominance. This meticulously researched volume provides a comparative analysis of punishment practices across five continents, exploring how various societies justified these punishments and how abolition movements gradually transformed legal systems worldwide. Accessible to both academic and general audiences, this definitive work fills a critical gap in existing literature by offering a holistic understanding of how punishment has shaped – and continues to influence – legal systems and social structures around the world.

By connecting historical practices to contemporary debates on criminal justice reform, human rights violations, and systemic inequality, the book serves as an essential resource for legal scholars, human rights advocates, criminologists, and historians alike.

Jennifer M. Miller is Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, where she began her career teaching in January 2015. She earned her PhD in Criminal Justice at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Her doctoral dissertation focused on sentencing outcomes in Arkansas, and corrections is her primary research interest.