Understanding the
Criminal Justice System
CJUS 101
Chapter 11: The American
Prison Experience
Prison
1.
Historical punishment
- brutality was used
- corporal punishment
a. English system
- notorious for brutality
- banishment
(1) Colonial punishment
- stocks / stakes / dunking /
branding / hanging / burning
Prison
(2) Punishment ideology
- some type of retribution
- enemies of society
- changing in 17th century
b. Reformation period
- French, Italian, English philosophers
(1) Classical School of Criminology
- Cesare Beccaria / Voltaire
- condemn the system
Prison
(2) Outlined new philosophy
(a) Presumption of innocence
(b) Punishment used is retribution
(c) Severity should be limited
(d) Corresponds to crime
(3) Pleasure / pain principle
Prison
- choose pleasure over pain
- must give pain to stop crime
2.
American prisons
- William Penn (1662)
- Pennsylvania
- limited death penalty
- fines / imprisonment / flogging
a. High Street Jail
- constructed work houses
Prison
- made inmates work
- pay debt to society
(1) Overcrowded
(2) Inadequate staff / conditions
b. Walnut Street Jail (1776)
- Quakers / jail reform
- single cells (6’ x 8’)
- worst prisoners
Prison
(1) Began “separate system”
- prisoners in single cells
(2) Built first penitentiaries
- named for “penitence” (remorse)
- prisoners in single cells
(a) Eastern Penitentiary
(b) Western Penitentiary
Prison
c. Auburn system
- New York
(1) Prison conditions
- striped uniforms
- water drops for torture
- talk only when answering guard
- time to contemplate life / crimes
(2) First workshops
- learn skills
Prison
- money for prison
(3) Most prisons followed Auburn style
- interior cells
- bars
- two or four bunks
(4) Most important goal
- production
- to bring in money for prison
Prison
d. Contract systems
- businesses contracted work
- inmate labor was cheap
(1) Piece / price system
- inmate paid for finished product
- inmate paid minimal
(2) Lease system
- left facility for the day
- worked in community
Prison
- prisons made money
(3) State account system
- prison sold goods
- paid inmate what they wanted
(a) Labor unions
- pressured state government
- only sell articles in state
(b) Only sell to state agencies
Prison
3.
Reformatory era
- treatment philosophy
- introduced 1870 to 1910
- therapy / rehabilitation
a. History
(1) Alexander Maconochie
- England’s Norfolk Island prison
- began Mark System
- inmates earned points
Prison
(2) Walter Crofton
- Irish system
- Indeterminate Sentence
(a) Began in solitary confinement
- showed good behavior
(b) Into group setting
- hard work / good behavior
(c) Outside prison to work
Prison
- “ticket of leave”
b. First reformatory
- El Mira, New York (1876)
- youth / young adults
- first time offenders
(1) Failed in 1910
- overcrowding
- hard-core inmates
- Washington Correctional Center
Prison
(2) Reformatory ideal
- safe, secure, conditional release
- education, vocational training
c. Industrial prisons
- return to production of goods
- work was best treatment
(1) Not go out of state
- into open market
- sold to government agencies
Prison
(2) Changing prison
- 1960s / 1970s
- focused on individual once more
- treatment / education
(a) 1980s
- concept of law and order
- told to “lock them up”
4.
Federal prison system
- early 1900s: housed in state prisons
Prison
a. 1891: authorized federal prisons
- by 1905: Atlanta / Leavenworth
b. 1930: Federal Bureau of Prisons
5.
Jails and detention centers
a. Local jail facilities (city / county)
- hold adult offenders
b. Detention centers
Prison
- county facilities to hold juveniles
c. Similar problems
- overcrowding / understaffed / low
morale / poorly training / under
educated
- disciplinary action / “political issue”
(1) To ease overcrowding
- work release / weekends / early
release / electronic monitoring