9,901 articles
Penal labour
Penal labor, also known as prison labor or penal servitude, is work performed by convicted prisoners as punishment, ranging from compulsory prison work to convict leasing and penal colonies.
Penal transportation
Penal transportation: punishment by exiling convicted offenders to penal colonies. Britain sent ~69,000 convicts to the Americas before 1776 and 158,702 to Australia, 1788–1868; also practiced by Portuguese, French, Spanish, Russian, and other empires.
Penal treadmill
Penal treadmill (treadwheel, 'everlasting staircase'), invented by William Cubitt around 1817-1818 for Bury St Edmunds and Brixton prisons; a rotating stepped wheel climbed by prisoners as hard labour, in 54 British prisons by 1824 and banned in 1902.
Penalties in English law
Penalties in English law: the rule against penalty clauses, from Dunlop's genuine pre-estimate test to the Cavendish/ParkingEye legitimate-interest test, covering secondary obligations, deposits, forfeiture, and comparative approaches.
Pendle witches
The Pendle witches were people, mostly from two families in the Forest of Pendle in Lancashire, tried for witchcraft at Lancaster Castle in August 1612, when ten were hanged.
Penn State child sex abuse scandal
The Penn State child sex abuse scandal centers on Jerry Sandusky, convicted in 2012 of 45 counts of abusing boys via The Second Mile charity, triggering the Freeh Report, NCAA sanctions, $109M settlements, and ongoing appeals.
Penny J. White
Penny J. White (born 1956), Tennessee Supreme Court justice 1992-1996, first woman First Judicial District Circuit Court judge; lost the 1996 Tennessee Plan retention election after the State v. Odom death penalty controversy, later a UT law professor.
People Nation
People Nation: Chicago-based street gang alliance, rival of Folk Nation, founded in Illinois prisons in the late 1970s and formalized in 1981 by Black P Stones, Vice Lords, Latin Kings, and Mickey Cobras; five-point star, number 5, left-side representation; now largely defunct on the streets.
People of the State of California v. Meta Platforms, Inc.
People of the State of California v. Meta Platforms, Inc., 4:23-cv-05448-YGR, is the 2023 Northern District of California lawsuit by 33 state attorneys general alleging Facebook and Instagram addict minors, violating COPPA and California consumer laws; tried in Oakland in 2026, resolved by a proposed $17 billion settlement.
People v. Lazarus
People v. Lazarus names several US cases, chiefly the 2015 California decision affirming LAPD officer Stephanie Lazarus's first degree murder conviction for the 1986 DNA-solved killing of Sheri Rasmussen; also Michigan 2010, New York 2013, and California 1929 cases.
People v. Turner
People v. Turner (Santa Clara County, 2016) is the Brock Allen Turner sexual assault prosecution: jury conviction on three felony counts, Judge Persky's six-month sentence, recalled judge, changed California law, appeal affirmed 2018.
Per curiam decision
Per curiam decision (Latin "by the court"): an unsigned court opinion issued in the court's name without naming a judge-author; typical of short summary dispositions but used even in landmark cases like Bush v. Gore.
Per stirpes
Per stirpes (Latin, "by branch") is an inheritance distribution method in which a predeceasing beneficiary's share passes equally to that beneficiary's own descendants, contrasted with per capita, where surviving beneficiaries split the share. Used in wills, trusts, and beneficiary designations.
Percy Anderson (federal judge)
Percy Anderson, born in 1948 in Long Beach, California, is a United States district judge for the Central District of California, appointed by President George W. Bush in 2002.
Pereiaslav Agreement
Pereiaslav Agreement (Pereiaslav Council, Переяславська рада): the 1654 Ukrainian-Muscovite settlement in which Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky's Cossack Hetmanate placed itself under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich's protection, completed by the March Articles; contested as alliance, protectorate, or 'reunification.'
Peremptory norm
Peremptory norm (jus cogens) in international law: a norm from which no derogation is permitted, hierarchically superior, voiding conflicting treaties, codified in VCLT Article 53 and codified in ILC 2022 draft conclusions.
Perfidy
Perfidy is the war crime of feigning a protected status under international humanitarian law, such as surrender, civilian status, or the red cross emblem, to kill, injure, or capture an adversary; distinct from lawful ruses of war like camouflage and ambush.
Performance bond
A performance bond is a surety bond guaranteeing a project owner that a contractor will complete a contract, with the surety arranging completion if the contractor defaults.
Perjury
Perjury: the crime of knowingly making a false statement under oath about a material issue in a proceeding. Also called false swearing; related to subornation of perjury. Key elements: oath, falsity, materiality, intent; US federal maximum five years under 18 U.S.C. 1621.
Permanent Court of Arbitration
Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), Hague-based intergovernmental arbitration body created by the 1899 Hague Convention, operating since 1902; panel-based, consensual institution with 129 contracting parties administering 251 cases in 2025.
Permanent Court of International Justice
Permanent Court of International Justice (Cour permanente de Justice internationale), the League of Nations' World Court at the Peace Palace, The Hague; sat 1922 to 1946, heard 29 contentious cases and 27 advisory opinions, and was succeeded by the ICJ.
Permanent Mandates Commission
Permanent Mandates Commission (Commission permanente des mandats), League of Nations advisory body under Article 22 of the Covenant, supervised fifteen mandated territories from Geneva, 1921 to 1946, before the UN Trusteeship Council replaced it.
Permanent Mandates Commission (Palestine)
The Permanent Mandates Commission (PMC) was the League of Nations expert body, sitting in Geneva from October 1921 to 1939, that examined mandatory powers' annual reports and petitions and advised the Council, including on the British Mandate for Palestine through the 1929 disturbances, the 1937 partition debate, and the 1939 White Paper.
Permanent Peoples' Tribunal
Permanent Peoples' Tribunal (Tribunale permanente dei popoli), an international opinion tribunal founded in Bologna in 1979 by the Lelio Basso Foundation, successor to the Russell Tribunals, judging peoples' rights violations from Rome.
Permanent Settlement (চিরস্থায়ী বন্দোবস্ত)
Permanent Settlement (চিরস্থায়ী বন্দোবস্ত), the 1793 Cornwallis settlement fixing Bengal's land revenue forever with zamindars as proprietors paying ten-elevenths; distinct from Ryotwari and Mahalwari systems.
Permissible exposure limit
Permissible exposure limit (PEL): OSHA's legally enforceable US workplace airborne chemical limits, mostly 8-hour TWAs in 29 CFR 1910.1000 Tables Z-1 to Z-3; distinguished from non-enforceable NIOSH RELs and ACGIH TLVs.
Perp walk
Perp walk: the American law enforcement practice of parading a handcuffed suspect before news cameras, also called perpetrator walk. Key facts: Fourth Amendment limits from Lauro v. Charles (2000), DOJ policy prohibition, and 2018 survey showing under one third public support.
Perry Edward Smith
Perry Edward Smith (1928-1965), convicted with Richard Hickock of the 1959 Clutter family murders in Holcomb, Kansas; executed by hanging April 14, 1965; subject of Capote's In Cold Blood.
Perry Expedition
Perry Expedition: 1853-1854 US naval mission under Commodore Matthew C. Perry whose Black Ships gunboat diplomacy produced the Treaty of Kanagawa, opening Shimoda and Hakodate and ending Tokugawa Japan's trade seclusion.
Persecution
Persecution, under Rome Statute Article 7, is a crime against humanity: intentional, severe deprivation of fundamental rights by reason of group identity, requiring discriminatory intent, distinguished from genocide by the absence of intent to destroy, first convicted at the ICC in the 2024 Al Hassan case.