According to Cleon Skousen, one of the most astonishing declarations concerning the Nephite civilization is found in Mosiah 2:13 which states that King Benjamin was able to eliminate the use of jails and prisons, the abomination of slavery and the curse of crime from among the people. The passage is worth repeating:
"Neither have I suffered that ye should be confined in dungeons, nor that ye should make slaves of one another, nor that ye should murder, or plunder, or steal, or commit adultery; nor even have I suffered that ye should commit any manner of wickedness, and have taught you that ye should keep the commandments of the Lord, in all things which he hath commanded you . . . "
Notice that there is not a single word as to how this remarkable achievement was brought about. King Benjamin simply says he taught them to "keep the commandments of the Lord" and did not "suffer" these commandments to be broken. But how does a king accomplish that?
We should remember that Moses received two sets of laws. The first law which was given to Moses was the Law of the Covenant, which prevails whenever the government of God is upon the earth. This Law was on the first set of stone tablets given to Moses on Mount Sinai and included all the higher ordinances of the Gospel. The Law of the Covenant given to Moses prior to the rebellion of Israel was a very advanced type of jurisprudence. There is reason to believe that it was the same law as that which prevailed in the City of Enoch, the City of Salem (under Melchizedek) and was used in all the great cities of ancient times which were administered by the patriarchs of God. This law was taken away and a second set of commandments issued when Israel rebelled.
The Lord's law had no provision for confinement in prison as a form of punishment. The basic purpose of the Lord's law was to provide "satisfaction" for the person wronged. . . . The judges simply required the offender to give complete "satisfaction" to his victim for the wrong he had committed. In the case of theft he had to return from two to five times the value of what he had taken. In the case of premeditated murder, the punishment was always death. Offenses which corrupted the community required the culprit to immediately repent--for if he did not, he remained in the community at the risk of his life. Offenses against the public peace or for which no satisfaction could be provided, were punished by giving a designated number of "stripes" (never to exceed 40 - Deuteronomy 25:2-3) and the prisoner was released. So it can be seen why King Benjamin had no need for prisons or dungeons under this system of law. [W. Cleon Skousen, Treasures from the Book of Mormon, Vol. 2, pp. 2036, 2051-2055]