Notes for Reflection: Eastern State Penitentiary Tour
Elizabeth Linehan, RSM
Responding to Criminal Offenders
Some day you may be called upon to serve on a jury in a criminal case. Before you
are selected, you will be asked a number of questions, including this one: “Have you, or
anyone close to you, ever been the victim of a crime?” And this one: “Have you, or anyone
close to you, ever been convicted of a crime?” You will not have to answer these questions
on the excursion to Eastern State Penitentiary, but I ask you to think about them. In my
experience with jury duty, I observe that most people in Philadelphia, at least, seem to have
some direct experience with crime (usually as victims).
The actions a society defines as “crimes” are actions that society wants to prevent,
and it uses punishments to try to prevent these actions. The kinds and amounts of
punishment used at a given historical period depend on what people of that time believe
about why crimes occur, and what motivates people to obey the law. So, based on your own
experience or observation of others’ experience of crime, what do you think
--are the reasons those crimes were committed?
--are the reasons some people commit these crimes and others do not?
What would you recommend in order to reform criminals, so that they do not repeat their
crimes?
Criminal Justice System: Background
Now that you have worked out your own theory of crime and punishment, consider
these background facts:
1. The typical punishment for a serious crime today, in the United States, is a prison
sentence. However, imprisonment was not generally used as punishment for
crime until beginning of nineteenth century. Before that, the main forms of
punishment were torture, maiming, and execution. The American colonies used
the whipping post, the stocks, and hanging. Prisons and jails were detention
centers, until people could be executed – or transported to Australia, new world,
etc. They were not themselves the punishment.
2. Although prison seems to us a very severe punishment, creating prisons was
actually meant as a reform. In Pennsylvania, this reform was led by the Quakers.
The first modern prison was in Philadelphia, Walnut Street Prison (1795).
Eastern State opened in 1829. The first Penal Servitude Act in England was in
1855, sixty years after the establishment of a prison in the U.S. From that time
on imprisonment became the most common form of criminal punishment. 1
3. The United States is the imprisonment leader among industrialized nations today.
More than 2.1 million people are in prisons and jails in the U.S.; that is 730 of
1
Lois G. Forer, A Rage to Punish, pp. 33 – 34.
1
every 100,000 people incarcerated. Russia is second, with 607/100,000
incarcerated. For Canada, by contrast, the number per 100,000 is 116. [These
are 2004 statistics; if anything, the numbers for the U.S. have increased since
then.]
4. Most of the men and women in prison in the U.S. have committed nonviolent
offenses, especially drug crimes.
5. It would be a great oversimplification to say that the United States has so many
people in prison because it has so much crime. This is too simple for two
reasons: first, because a society decides what to count as a “crime.” The crime
rate may increase because activities that were not criminal before have been
redefined as criminal (e.g., sale of alcoholic beverages during Prohibition).
Second, one of the major reasons so many people are in prison is the trend to
long, mandatory sentences.
6. Prison sentences in the U.S. are, in general, the longest in the industrialized
world.2 Increased use of a “life without parole” sentence will widen this gap. In
many European nations it is not even permitted to sentence someone to life
imprisonment.
Goals of Imprisonment
We will be visiting a museum that, for most of its existence, was a prison. So,
thinking of a prison sentence as a response to crime, reflect on the purpose or purposes of
keeping people confined in this way. What’s the point? What good is it supposed to do, for
the offender or for the rest of society? What do you think about how effective prisons are at
achieving their goal (or goals)? What I am asking here is your own opinion. To aid your
reflection, it might be useful to mention some goals that societies at different times have had
in mind. They include:
•
Reform of the criminal
•
Protection of society from dangerous persons
•
Deterrence – of the criminal himself, from future crimes, and of others who
see what happens when one commits a crime
•
Justice, in the form of retribution
•
Reparation to the state and to direct victims
Which of these goals has been given the greatest importance has varied over time. The
priority of a particular goal makes a difference. It dictates a number of concrete aspects of a
prison system, such as length of sentences, programs and activities available to prisoners, and
even the physical structure of the buildings themselves. This is very apparent in the history
of Eastern State Penitentiary.
Eastern State Penitentiary
2
The United States also stands pretty much alone in that world in its use of the death penalty.
2
The tour will provide rich historical detail about Eastern State Penitentiary. Even
more important, it will give you a “feel” for the experience of those imprisoned there.
These few historical details are useful for you to have beforehand:
In 1787 the Pennsylvania Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, 3
under the leadership of Benjamin Rush, proposed the idea of building a prison in Philadelphia
that would be a model for the world, of humane and enlightened treatment of criminal
offenders. The project was supported by important colonial leaders, such as Benjamin
Franklin. After lobbying the Pennsylvania legislature for more than thirty years, the prison
was finally built, on a hill outside the city. It was originally designed to hold 250 inmates.
Eastern State Penitentiary opened in 1829 and attracted immediate international
interest as a new model of incarceration. This model, based on isolation in order to induce
repentance, was referred to by its architect as “a forced monastery.” Unlike other prisons of
the time, Eastern State did not permit any corporal punishments. In that sense, at least, it
was comparatively humane. The Eastern State Penitentiary web site notes that in the 19th
century most prisons in the world were built according to one of two models: the
“Pennsylvania model” of Eastern State, and New York state’s Auburn System. In contrast to
the solitary confinement that was the heart of the Pennsylvania model, the Auburn System
was a “congregate” model.
Eastern State continued to operate as a prison until 1971, but the solitary model was
abandoned much earlier (officially, in 1913; in practice, before that). By 1926 it housed
1,700 inmates; by this time a number of new cell blocks had been built. In 1956 Cell Block
15, Death Row, was added.
After the Tour
Based on what you’ve learned and thought about, what do you now see as the most effective
and most humane way for our society to respond to those who commit criminal offenses?
3
This organization still exists, as the Pennsylvania Prison Society. It is dedicated to prison reform and
social justice.
3