RECLUSION. — It may be considered either as a preventive custody (*V. CARCERE*) or as a vindictive penalty for a crime.
1. RECLUSION AS A PENALTY IN CANON LAW. — Considered from the second perspective, from a historical point of view, imprisonment as a penalty arrived rather late in the evolution of penal law. In Roman law, imprisonment was not regarded as a penalty, because the State did not intend to support idlers (*I. 8, § 9, D. 48, 19; 1, 35, D. 48, 19; 1, 6, C. 9, 47*). The same was true in barbarian law (*A. Pertile, Storia del diritto italiano, V, Storia del diritto penale, Torino 1892, pp. 279, 287*). Wernz, however, claims that reclusion was already in use among Germanic peoples when it was deemed appropriate to introduce it into the ecclesiastical forum (*F. X. Wernz, Ius Decretalium, IV, Prato 1913, p. 107*). According to Vacandard, reclusion is of exclusively ecclesiastical origin (*cf. E. Vacandard, L'inquisition, Paris 1907, p. 39*).
Documents from the 6th century speak of enclosed places, called *decaneta*, for the relegation of guilty clerics, not only for custody pending trial but also for amendment and penance (*cf. Council of Agde [a. 506], can. 50; Council of Épaone [a. 517], can. 22; Council of Mâcon [a. 581], can. 5-6; Eleventh Council of Toledo [a. 675], can. 6; German Council [a. 742], can. 6*). As for clerics, detention in monasteries was preferred out of respect for their clerical state (*Council of Narbonne [a. 589], can. 6; Fourth Council of Toledo [a. 631], can. 29, 45*). Monasteries were also to receive widows of subdeacons and minor clerics who remarried (*Second Council of Mâcon [a. 583], can. 16*). Monasteries moreover had a section designated as a prison for punishing their own monks or nuns (in the case of female monasteries) in the event of crimes. Over time, the penalty of imprisonment, originally reserved for clerics and religious, was extended to laypeople as well, especially to spare them from more ferocious and cruel corporal punishments. The *Decretum* of Gratian, the Decretals, and the *Liber Sextus* of Boniface VIII frequently mention this penalty (*4, D. 50; 13, D. 55; 8, X, V, 37; 15, V, II in 6°; 12, 18, V, II in 6°*), which persisted throughout the Middle Ages; it is listed among ordinary penalties in the Council of Trent (*Session XXV, chap. 6, 14 de ref.*) and in subsequent periods, being continuously applied and adapted, particularly in the 16th–18th centuries by various states. Throughout this time, the Church exerted a strong influence in humanizing imprisonment and giving it a regenerative purpose, and it set an example in this regard (*V. CARCERE*). Even today, after the 1917 *Codex Iuris Canonici*, it cannot be said that the penalty of reclusion, though mitigated and reduced to confinement in monasteries, has entirely disappeared. Its enforcement is often made difficult, if not impossible, by civil laws.
**II. RECLUSION IN ITALIAN PENAL LAW.** — In the old Italian penal code (1889), a distinction was made between reclusion and detention, a distinction that, lacking any practical significance, is no longer found in the new penal code (1930). According to Article 23, the penalty of reclusion ranges from fifteen days to twenty-four years and is served in one of the establishments designated for this purpose, with obligatory labor and nocturnal isolation. A person sentenced to reclusion who has served at least one year of the penalty may be admitted to outdoor labor. The provisions of the last two paragraphs of Article 2 of the Penal Code apply to the penalty of reclusion, meaning that the Minister of Grace and Justice may arrange for the penalty to be served in a penal colony or agricultural estate (today, politically, the situation is ripe) and may permit the sentenced person to engage in outdoor labor even before having served one year of the penalty. These provisions are inspired, in addition to a sense of humanity, by the opportunity to reform the offender by making him capable of reintegrating into social life after serving his sentence. The institution of conditional release is therefore provided for in the Penal Code (Article 176).
Article 21 of Royal Decree No. 1404 of 20 July 1934 on juvenile courts lays down special, more favorable rules regarding the granting of conditional liberty for offenders under eighteen years of age. A sentence of reclusion for an intentional or preterintentional crime committed by a person over eighteen years of age automatically entails certain accessory penalties. If the reclusion is for a term of not less than five years, perpetual disqualification from public office results. Disqualification is temporary if the reclusion is for a term of less than five years. Furthermore, a person sentenced to reclusion for a term of not less than five years remains under legal disqualification until the penalty has been served or otherwise extinguished, and is also subject to suspension from the exercise of parental authority and marital authority, unless the judge decides to exclude this effect. Another accessory penalty to reclusion is that of supervised liberty (Article 220). This is mandatory when reclusion of not less than ten years has been imposed and is optional in the case of a sentence of reclusion for a term of less than ten years. Supervised liberty may not last less than three years and is applied when certain security measures are not to be imposed. Regarding the manner of imposing the penalty of reclusion, *V. PENITENTIARY*.
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