That's actually used to be the norm in Europe, too. Various forms of corporal punishment for smaller offences and death for major ones. Prisons where people would be kept for years at a time are a fairly recent development of XIX century
African cultures didn’t have prisons and neither did native North Americans.
Yeah, they just either killed or tortured you (or a family member in retribution) or booted you from the tribe- sounds like a death sentence in a lot of cases to me …