The punishment of illegal, undesirable, and deviant members of society is an aspect of criminal justice that has undergone several transformations throughout history. While the concept of punishment has remained a constant—the idea that those who break the law must somehow pay their debt to society—the methods used to impose and achieve that punishment have changed greatly. The growth and development of society, together with an underlying and perpetual fear of crime, are strongly linked to the use of very different forms of punishment ranging from public executions, forced labor, penal welfarism and popular punitivism over a few hundred years old. years. Crime builds us as a society while society simultaneously determines what is criminal. As society is constantly evolving, the way we view crime and criminal behavior changes, so the way we punish such criminal behavior also changes. In the early modern era in Europe, public executions were the primary punishment meted out to members of society involved in criminal behavior. This form of punishment served to show the absolute power of the state, king, and church to take the life of any citizen who disrupted the peace. It was a way to make the criminal justice system visible and effective in an era when the criminal justice system was in its initial stages of demonstrating order (Spierenburg). More specifically, it was a relatively simple and psychological way to evoke deterrence. The potential for gruesome violence, public persecution and religious betrayal were tools deemed strong enough to make public executions an effective form of deterrence because within the community, social bonds and religion were the fourth... ....to achieve this type of positive result. Prisons must be structured, orderly, isolated and individualized to truly rehabilitate the criminal. Despite the very strict methods needed to bring about prisoner reform, this type of punishment was still a far cry from the public executions that were popular in earlier history. Politicians, the public, and a new generation of thinkers were now focused on stabilizing American society and improving the conditions of humanity (Rotham), particularly when it came to the criminal justice system rather than simply demonstrating power and control to seek to maintain deterrence. Along with society's natural progressive focus on humane, helpful, and educated responses to criminal behavior, a fear of crime has developed that also helps explain changes in punishment throughout history...