Something else just occurred to me. This may be thread creep - maybe not...

I was at a conference on legal systems in the Third World, where some Africans were discussing the changes in their legal system brought about by colonization. Apparently the ancient systems were based upon REPARATION - you commit a crime, it is your duty to redress the wrong you caused. Thus if you steal something and sell it for the money, you have to sell something of your own to buy it back to give back to your victim. If you kill someone, you owe that family LOTS, might even have to marry the widow, and so on. But the concept of PUNISHMENT (qua punishment, not as a reparation scheme - some might consider it punishment to have to make reparation) was alien to them, and the colonists could not understand that, so they invented jails, and sentences, and so on, which make no sense to the locals because if you are in jail, how are you going to make the money to give back to your victims what you took from them? Anyway, it was very interesting, and I wonder what you all think about it. Curiosity is all.