Rise Of The Penitentiary In America example essay topic

After years of trying to locate the origins of crime and delinquency within society the Jacksonian's came to the conclusion that crime was the fault of the environment, not a permanent or inevitable phenomenon. As a result America set out to protect the safety of society and to achieve unprecedented success in eradicating deviancy. This analysis of the origin of crime became a 'rallying cry to action' and according to Rothman was directly responsible for the invention of the penitentiary. The Penitentiary was an attempt by the Americans to eliminate the "specific influences that were breeding crime in the community, and to demonstrate the fundamentals of proper social organization" and would "join practically to humanitarianism, reform the criminal, stabilize American society and demonstrate how to improve the condition of mankind".

It is believed that the first penitentiaries were established in the 1780's but they did not spring out of nowhere. The concept of the penitentiary existed in the minds of people long before it took shape as a physical entity consisting of stones and mortar. These carc eral schemes that were established in the mid 1780's followed a stream of advocacy and initiatives stretching back in England to the earliest workhouses. According to Adam J. Hirsch author of 'The Rise of the Penitentiary', to fully understand the rise of the penitentiary in America we must move beyond ideology to the social reality of criminal justice in early America. The social reality was one of change, and over the course of the 18th Century a significant change occurred, which set the scene for the abandonment of traditional sanctions in several American states as well as England. By taking Massachusetts as an example it is possible to show the evolution of the criminal justice system and the rise of the penitentiary in the United States.

Throughout the 17th Century Massachusetts remained a conglomerate of small, tight knit communities. Over the course of a century these communities grew slowly and steadily almost entirely naturally. The Criminal Justice System at work in Massachusetts reflected the social intimacy of the communities, because of a lack of turnover in population nearly all of the offenders were life long residents, well known to everyone. These communities preferred to use sanctions that would draw the offender back into the community and this is reflected in the use of fining practices by the community. The fines relied on the use of deterrence to hold potential offenders in check. These fines were then frequently remitted subject to good behaviour.

These remissions had a probationary overtone of sorts and by remitting the fines the community was showing their willingness to accept the offenders back into the fold. The communities also implemented such public punishments as whipping and the use of the pillory with the hope of producing in offenders the feelings of shame and remorse through as Hirsch describes it 'the manifest collective disapproval of the community'. These public punishments served a dual purpose as they also sought to deter not only the offender but the onlookers by administering degrees of physical pain. The use of these punishments and a small number of others appeared to have held crime to an acceptable level throughout 17th Century Massachusetts, but this was soon to change. During the 18th Century the province experienced a period of rapid population growth that distorted any prior patterns of criminal activity.

With over thirty towns in Massachusetts containing a population of 2000 or more there was a gradual increase in the number of offences which sharpened into a rapid increase after the 1770's especially in urban areas. The rise in crime was blamed on idleness and depravity but Publicists of the time also pointed the finger at the 'ineffectiveness of traditional sanctions'. This, according to Hirsch, and the disquiet over rampant crime formed crucial links in the chain that led to the rise of the penitentiary. Crime waves invariably generate pressure for state action and the degradation of criminal sanctions was seen as especially threatening to the society of early Massachusetts.

The most notable legislative response that the communities of Massachusetts embarked upon was that of a wider recourse to capital punishment. In 1692 the only property crimes punishable by death were for three offences of burglary and robbery, this had changed drastically by 1761 where the robbery statute was changed to send first time offenders to the gallows. This was not an uncommon occurrence among other states and only after the slide toward traditional, harsher sanctions had led them to a dead end, did the lawmakers turn sideways to explore alternative solutions to the problems of crime that faced the provinces. The failure of these more traditional sanctions did not immediately result in the incarceration of criminals; hard labour was one of several alternatives offered up. Considered as a deterrent hard labour combined the rationalist virtue of certainty with the traditional virtue of severity with the added bonus that if all else failed then the property criminals would at least be incapacitated for a time. But by the late 18th Century, incarceration was seen as a more reliable way to incapacitate offenders with advocates fro incarceration promising that the prisoners labour would defray the expenses of an otherwise costly punishment.

The introduction of the penitentiary ended the involvement of the community in the punishment of offenders as it was no longer seen as constructive. The move from pillory to penitentiary, like most legal institutions in place took time. After receiving the go ahead from the respective state legislators American penitentiaries began to take shape. These Post-Revolution institutions conformed to the rehabituative tradition, congregate hard labour by day and congregate confinement by night became the institutional routine.

However across the water in England the ideological innovations that were blossoming at the time found their way into American states. This new ideological element that was causing the upheaval was solitary confinement. In the 1820's New York and Pennsylvania started a movement that would soon spread through the Northeast of America and then over time through to many Midwestern states. New York devised the 'Auburn's ystem of penitentiary organization, implementing it first at the Auburn State Prison between the years of 1819 - 23. The 'Auburn's ystem was a congregate system where prisoners slept alone in a cell at night, and laboured together in a workshop during the day for the rest of their fixed sentences in the penitentiary. The system allowed absolutely no conversing between fellow inmates and they were not even permitted to exchange glances while on the job, at meal times, or while in their cells.

Officials in Pennsylvania began to work out details of a rival plan in direct competition with the 'Auburn's ystem. They applied this 'Separate's ystem to the penitentiary at Pittsburgh in 1826 and then to the prison in Philadelphia in 1829. The 'Separate's ystem that Pennsylvania advocated isolated the prisoners for the entire period of their confinement in the penitentiary. According to the 'Separate's ystem blueprints, the inmates were to eat, work and sleep in individual cells, seeing and talking with only a handful of responsible guards and selected visitors.

The idea being that the inmates would leave the institution as ignorant of the identity of their fellow inmates as the day on which they arrived. The hub of activity concerning the establishment of penitentiaries across the US concerned many Americans, with annual reports to state legislators containing long, detailed discussions concerning the virtues of the various systems. Following on from this Europeans came across the water to evaluate the penitentiaries with the major powers appointing official investigators to do their bidding. The French sent in Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave Auguste de Beaumont, probably the most famous pair, in 1831, followed by William Crawford, a delegate from England sent in 1834.

By the 1830's the American Penitentiary had become the most famous in the entire world. The main focus of the investigators attention was not whether or not the penitentiaries were in fact achieving their goals, but on the merits of the two competing systems. This debate raged on for decades even though the majority of the prisons in the USA had adopted the 'Auburn's ystem. In England the story appears to have been similar to that of America, insofar as the rise of criminal incarceration corresponded with the declining effectiveness of the traditional sanctions that they employed.

The principal reason for this move to reform the penal codes in England and across Europe in the 18th Century was the publication of a book entitled 'Dei Deli tti e delle Pene'. Published in 1764 the book was written by Cesare Beccaria and was an attack on the widespread use of the death penalty. Beccaria regarded the use of capital punishment as inefficient as the cruelty that it inflicted tended to corrupt the offenders rather than preventing them from re offending, believing that punishment should deter and create an impression on the people. The book was published in England in 1767 under the title 'On Crimes and Punishments' and essentially caught the mood of Europe whose rulers and people were turning away from the excesses of the penal codes which were prevailing at the time. One of Beccaria's most notable followers was William Eden; the author of 'Principles of Penal Law' who like Beccaria was against the blanket use of the death penalty. It was Eden's belief that the Criminal Justice System based on capital punishment in operation in England was ineffective for dealing with crime, and that the spectacle of public execution had lost its effect as a deterrent.

Eden proposed that some form of continuous public punishment be substituted so that 'the wages of crime could be permanently displayed to the public and thereby act as a deterrent to those who might be tempted into crime'. The ideas that Eden put forward were never implemented by law but due to Beccaria's influence in England through Eden the issue of penal reform was placed firmly on the political agenda. According to Harding it was largely a coincidence that that led to a change on the system of punishment implemented in England. By the 1770's there was a growing dissatisfaction with capital punishment and transportation. Transportation was seen as ineffective because it lacked any form of public spectacle and it was felt that many criminals did not fear transportation. The Beauchamp committee of 1785 recognized that transportation was defective but still favoured it due to the fact that it did reform criminals, was beneficial to the colonies, and most importantly there was no alternative way to deal with the majority of felons.

The War of Independence effectively ended transportation to America as the government had nowhere to send those who had been sentenced to transportation. While the government was trying to find an adequate replacement to transportation people were still being sentenced, so they were sent to local prisons, while others were sent to live in ships, called the 'Hulks'. These 'Hulks' were moored at naval dockyards, where the prisoners were sent to work in the dockyard, or dredging rivers. The 'Hulks's ignalled an important moment in the history of penal administration. Before, the central government had only involved itself in penal administration through the process of transportation, and now it was involved in the administration of large prisons in England. To some extent it could be said that the 'Hulks' enabled the issue of prisons to become a governmental issue.

In 1787, transportation was resumed, this time to Australia but a man named John Howard, a man 'typical of the late 18th century ideal of a true philanthropist', had popularized the notion of the prison as a positive institution, and indicated that a viable alternative to the death penalty and transportation did exist. In 1779 came the Penitentiary Act, the work of John Howard, Sir William Blackstone and William Eden. Section 5 of the Act contained principles that would go on to influence the debate on prison discipline for the next 70 years. "If many offenders, convicted of crimes... were ordered to solitary imprisonment, accompanied by well regulated labour, and religious instruction, it might be the means... not only of deterring others from the Commission of reforming the individuals, and inuring them to habits of industry". The Act was well received but never actually got off the ground for various reasons including the appointed commissioner's inability to agree on a suitable site. During the years of the French Wars prison reform slowed down considerably and it would be another twenty years before the Penitentiary Act of 1779 would again be discussed.

In 1810 Samuel Romilly moved for the execution of the 1779 Act in pursuit of reducing the number of capital offences. Romilly realised that transportation and the existing prison system were not satisfactory alternatives due to the amount of criticism they were receiving and therefore supported the penitentiary system. Once again the Penitentiary act was defeated but the government established a committee that would look into the matter. The Hol ford Committee, as they were known came out in favour of a system of internal reformation of the prisoners by means of an initial period of solitary confinement, religious instruction and work, followed by a period of work in association based upon the models of Gloucester Prison and Southwell House of Correction..