Captivity
For example, it has been noted that it is hard to say whether members of a rhinoceros family kept in a thousand-acre enclosure within their normal area of habitation, for purposes of insuring their preservation, are really in captivity.
According to the Institute for Criminal Policy Research at the University of London, as of 2016 an estimated 10.35 million people were imprisoned worldwide.
[10] The taking of captives may have been a byproduct, but was also often a primary goal of conducting raids and warfare in small scale societies.
[18][19] Beyond but in many ways similar to slavery, many in colonial times regardless of ethnicity found captivity in the form of indentured servitude, impressed into forced labor until their debts could be paid.
[20]: 28 Alternatively, although the practice of slavery had since been abolished, many natives found themselves otherwise held captive, such as the internment of the Navajo in the American southwest in the 1860s, in part to force a transition to the life of sedentary Christian farmers.
For example, George P. Smith II and Matthew Saunig examined the concept of economic captivity as it related to housing discrimination.
[24] Globally, it has been estimated that between 21 and 35.8 million people are victims of trafficking for sexual or labor exploitation, around two-thirds of them women and girls.
The issue has been addressed variously at the national level, and internationally with the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children.
It includes kidnapping and hostage taking, practices which date at least to Biblical times, with an Old Testament formal prohibition given in Exodus 21:16.
These practices continue to the modern day, and are a common tactic used by terrorist or criminal organizations as a means of gaining power or for monetary extortion.
[25]: 61–3 The definition of false imprisonment also goes beyond kidnapping and hostage taking situations, to include circumstances under which a person is held captive under a fraudulent assertion of authority.
For example, if a police officer were to detain a person in their patrol car for a short period of time without a legally justifiable reason, that brief captivity would still constitute false imprisonment.
[26] These alliances, resulting from a bond formed between captor and captives during intimate time spent together, are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims.
[27][28] Swiss biologist Heini Hediger noted that "[m]an's first efforts to keep wild animals in captivity date back to prehistoric times".
[29]: 2 In examining domesticated pets, researcher Alexandra Horowitz describes the plight of dogs as being constitutionally captive.
