Sky People/Crime and Punishment

Among the various human factions on the ground and in space, punishment for various crimes take many forms depending on the severity of the crime and the age of the criminal.

Juvenile Lockup


If someone under the age of 18 is arrested, they are held in prison until they turn 18 at which point they are tried before The Council for the crime(s) they committed. From this trial, the accused can either be acquitted or found guilty and floated. After the oxygen shortage on the Ark reached critical levels, these underage Delinquents were sent to Earth to see if it was survivable.

Flotation


Capital Punishment in the form of Flotation occurred on The Ark when someone the age of 18 or older broke the law. This is a form of execution where a person is put into an airlock chamber which is then opened, exposing them to the outside elements and forcing the person's body to be sucked into the open space, resulting in death from lack of oxygen and negative pressure. Rarely, an adult prisoner may be granted a stay of execution by The Council, as in the case of Abigail Griffin.

Death from a Thousand Cuts


Capital punishment in the form of Death from a Thousand Cuts occurs when every single member of the clan takes a turn cutting the convicted before feeding them to the bugs. For more egregious crimes (as in the case of Finn Collins), they start with fire and take the hands, tongue, and eyes. Everyone gets a turn with the knife before the Commander ends it with the sword, if the person is still alive by then.

Other Forms of Punishment
Once on earth, the Delinquents quickly discovered they needed rules to survive. As co-leaders of the 100, Clarke Griffin and Bellamy Blake ordered the banishment of John Murphy after the suicide of Charlotte. The Woods Clan also banished Delano and his men. Delano was a thief but it is unknown what the others did.

Once the rest of the Sky People arrived on earth, they put into effect the Exodus Charter. Under the Exodus Charter, unauthorized use of firearms was to be punishable as a felony with 10 shock lashes. Abigail Griffin was punished after committing said felony (providing guns to the Delinquents).

Trivia

 * In the book, before Flotation, a nurse injected the convicted person with a lethal serum and then the corpse was sent into space.
 * Bellamy Blake was charged in absentia for his attempted assassination of Chancellor Jaha in Pilot in order to get on the drop ship with his sister, Octavia. He was later pardoned in Unity Day by Chancellor Jaha after revealing it was Commander Shumway who had set it up.