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What were the Prison Systems in the Song Dynasty?

Prisons in the Song Dynasty were not only detention centers for criminal defendants, unexecuted prisoners and witnesses, but also shelters for parties to civil lawsuits; The agency is also an administrative tool for demanding debts. Its importance is self-evident, so the Song government set up a complete prison system from top to bottom. The prison system of the Song Dynasty was divided into two parts: central prisons and local prisons.

1. Central Prison

The central prison refers to the prison located in the capital and subordinate to the central government office.

There are mainly Yushitai Prison, Dali Temple Prison and Kaifeng Fu Prison. “Yushitai Prison” is an institution under the jurisdiction of Yushitai, the highest supervisory organ, and mainly detains officials who have committed crimes.

During Song Taizu’s reign, in order to prevent the misuse of Dali Temple, the Central Prison was moved to Yushitai, which was called “Taiwan Prison” at that time. The platform prison, also known as the “imperial prison”, mainly detains the court ministers who committed crimes and the major criminals who were personally interrogated by the emperor. In fact, it was the imperial prison for the emperor to punish criminal officials. Su Dongpo was once imprisoned in Taiwan Prison.

Yushitai Prison specializes in handling major cases assigned by the emperor.

“Dali Temple Prison” – At the beginning of the Song Dynasty, Taizu changed the old system of the Tang Dynasty and did not set up a Dali Temple Prison. After Song Shenzong succeeded to the throne, he restored the Dali Temple Prison and was responsible for detaining “the three divisions in Beijing, the officials of the temple supervisors who committed serious crimes above the level of criminals”.

As a result, the coexistence of Dali Temple Prison and Yushitai Prison was formed. “Kaifeng Mansion Prison” – Song Dynasty set up a prison in Kaifeng, the capital, which had the dual functions of a central prison and a local prison.

There are also Sipai’an Prison and Tongwenguan Prison, which belong to the administrative bureau; Dianqian Prison and Ma Bujun Prison are military prisons.

Si Pai An is referred to as “Si Pai An” for short. It is the official office in charge of maintaining water transportation and transporting large amounts of goods directly to the capital in the Song Dynasty. It is also equipped with armed forces to maintain river traffic. The department set up a prison, which was called Sipaian prison.

Anyone who steals official property, embezzles, sells, or destroys boats during water transportation will be dealt with by the Si Pai Bank Secretary and imprisoned in the Si Pai Bank Prison.

One of the characteristics of Sipai’an Prison is that the prisoners’ food can be provided by the prison, because many of the criminals are transport boat workers who are far away from home and cannot pay their own food expenses, while the food of prisoners in other prisons is provided by their relatives.

These prisons directly under the central government are relatively large. According to the records in Volume 349 of “Changbian”, in the first year of Yuanfeng (1078), there were more than a thousand prisoners in Dali Temple and Kaifeng Prefecture.

Regarding the scale of Sansi Prison, in the first year of Zhenzong Xianping (998), about 3,000 prisoners were released at one time.

2. Local prisons

Local prisons refer to the prisons set up by Song at the state and county levels.

The local administrative organizations in the Song Dynasty included roads, prefectures (states, military, and prisons), and counties. However, each road has set up some criminal and prison envoys (also known as Xiansi), who are in charge of the criminal and prison affairs of the prefectures and counties under the jurisdiction of the road.

In the Song Dynasty, Sili Yuan Prison and Mabu Military Yuan Prison were set up in Zhuzhou. Sili Yuan Prison was a civilian prison, and Mabu Military Yuan Prison was a military prison. The county prison is still under the old system, and there is no distinction between military prisons and non-military prisons.

The size of prisons varies greatly from state to state. There are generally two prisons in each state, namely, the State Prison and the Supervisory Prison.

In some important states, the Senate is divided into left and right or east and west chambers, with a total of three prisons.

In some remote and small prefectures, there is only one prison because there are not many cases, and even if there are three prisons in some, they will eventually be merged. Regarding the scale of county-level prisons, Lei Xiaoyou of the Southern Song Dynasty recorded in “Xinchang Prison Records” that in the Xinchang County Prison that had just been repaired, “everything has six rooms, stores, baths, and even the tools used to manage prisons are all in the middle of the law.”

Obviously, the jail in Xinchang County has only six rooms, which is much smaller.

The Song Dynasty was in the period of linking the past and the future in ancient China. Its prison organization system was developed on the basis of the Tang Dynasty, and it was perfected and strengthened in combination with the characteristics of the dynasty. had an important impact.