William Penn
-Adopted the Great Law of Pennsylvania
-Based on humane Quaker principles and emphasized hard labor in a house of correction as punishment for most crimes.
-Death reserved for premeditated murder
-The law was used until 1718 when it was replaced by the Anglican Code
The Anglican Code
-The Anglican Code featuring 13 laws, 12 of which were punishable by death (larceny was the exception)
-Corporal punishment was used for a variety of offenses
The Arrival of the Penitentiary
-Penitentiary was a place intended to isolate prisoners from society and from one another so that they could reflect on their past misdeeds, repent, and thus undergo reformation.
-First appeared in 1790
-Philadelphia's Walnut Street Jail
-By 1830 foreign observers were looking at the American System as a model
-Tocqueville
-William Crawford
The Pennsylvania System
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Pennsylvania system principles:
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The New York (Auburn) System
Congregate System and Contract Labor System
Congregate System
-Began by Elam Lynds in 1821. Inmates held in isolation at night but congregated on workshops during the day under a rule of silence. Inmates were forbidden from talking or even looking at each other while working.
Contract Labor System
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Debating the Systems?
Questions about disciplining citizens in democracy and -Questions about disciplining citizens in democracy and maintaining conformity to social norms
-Proponents of New York System believed inmates had to first "be broken"
-Proponents of Auburn System rejected harsh punishment
-Most European visitors favored the Pennsylvania model regarding the design and management of penitentiaries
Lease System
The Development of Prisons in the South and West
-Inmates were leased to contractors who provided prisoners with food and clothing in exchange for their labor. In southern states, the prisoners were used as field laborers, and in many cases, were treated worse than slaves, as the field bosses had no ownership interest in the prisoners.
-Leasing program used extensively in California, Montana, Oregon, and Wyoming until passage of the Anti-Contract Law of 1887.
-Upon becoming a state in 1850, California reformatted its system, which led to San Quentin and other prison reforms.
The Reformatory Movement
-By mid-1800s reformers became disillusioned with the penitentiary due to overcrowding, understaffing, and minimal financing.
-Nationwide survey of prisons exposed inadequacies, authored by Enoch Cobb Wines and Theodore Dwight.
Alexander Maconochie
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Sir Walter Crofton
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Cincinnati, 1870:
-Meeting held in 1870 with America's best know penal reformers, the National Prison Association, forerunner to American Correctional Association.
-Prison operations should stem from a philosophy of inmate change, with reformation rewarded by release.
Indeterminate length sentences replaced by fixed sentences.
-Reformation, rather than lapse of time necessary for prisoner's release.
-Individuals such as Gaylord Hubbell and Enoch Wines were motivated by human concerns and paved the way for reform.
Cincinnati, 1870 (cont.)
-Classification of prisoners on the basis of character and improvement.
-Penitentiary practices of fixed sentences, the lockstep, rules of silence and isolation seen as debasing and humiliating.
-The Cincinnati declaration insisted that "reformation is a work of time," and that for the protection of society reformations need to be long enough for the reformatory process to take effect.
Elmira Reformatory
-Zebulon Brockway was superintendent of first reformatory at Elmira, New York
-Believed that diagnosis and treatment were the keys to reform and rehabilitation
-Wanted to identify the "root causes" of the offender's deviance
-Designed for first-time felon offenders between ages of 16 and 30
-Claimed to rehabilitate at an 80% rate.
Lasting Reforms:
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Progressives (the rise)
-Early 1900s-1960
-Attacked the excesses of big business and placed their faith in state action to deal with the social problems of slums, adulterated food, dangerous occupational conditions, vice, and crime
-Mostly came from upper-class backgrounds
Individualized Treatment and the Positivist School
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Two words that describe this positivist school of thought:
conscience & convenience
Positivist school assumptions:
-Criminal behavior is not the result of free will but stems from factors over which the individual has no control:
-Biological characteristics
-Psychological maladjustments
-Sociological conditions
-Criminals can be treated so that they can lead crime-free lives.
-Treatment must center on the individual and the individual's adjustment.
Progressive Reforms
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Probation
Recognized individual differences and allowed offenders to be treated in the community under supervision.
Indeterminate Sentences
Minimum and maximum terms, within which the correctional process of rehabilitation could operate.
Parole
Caught on in the US in 1920, during that time period 80% of felons who left prison were placed on parole
Medical model
Assumption that criminal behavior is caused by social, psychological, or biological deficiencies that require treatment. Howard Gill ran Mass. Norfolk State Prison Colony under this model, much like a college, and an escape led to his removal in 1934.
1929
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From Medical Model to Community Model
-Social and political values of 1960s and 1970s:
-Civil rights movement
-War on poverty
-Resistance to the Vietnam War
Americans challenged government institutions dealing with:
-Education
-Mental health
-Juvenile delinquency
-Adult corrections
Community corrections
-Reintegrating the offender into the community should be the goal of the criminal justice system.
-Corrections should turn away from psychological care and turn to programs that would increase offenders' success upon leaving the institution.
Attica Prison Riot
Officials urged to make decarceration through community corrections the goal and make greater use of alternatives such as:
-Probation
-Halfway houses
-Community service
The Decline of Rehabilitation
-Proponents called for longer sentences , especially for career criminals and violence offenders
-Robert Martinson's "Nothing Works" report
-Also challenged unwarranted amount of discretion given to correctional decision makers, particularly that of the parole board
The Emergence of Crime Control:
-Political climate change in 1970s and 1980s
-Crime rate at historic levels
-Response by legislators, judges, criminal justice officials
-By 1980, crime and punishment became intense subject for ideological conflict, partisan politics, and legislative action.
-A more punitive ethos during that time (1980s & 1990s) also influenced its return.
Where Are We Today?
-It would be a good time for us as a society to reexamine correctional policy.
-For the first time in decades the costs of the retributive crime control policy of the 1990s are being scrutinized.