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The history of prison development
Prison effects on society
Benefits of prisons to the society
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No one likes seeing large imposing buildings with high brick walls and barbed wire topping them And behind those thick walls is another imposing building with small slivers crossed with large grates to let light in and men and women clothed in orange roaming the highly watched yard. They are imposing and daunting buildings, ones that would take away from a community’s attractiveness. But worse than seeing a new building like this one being built in one’s community, is seeing an already imposing building expanding into one’s neighborhood. These imposing buildings remind society that the world is not as safe as one would like to believe, that there are more than a few less than savory citizens in our midst. Expanding our nation’s prisons is not necessary to benefit society because prisoners cost society more than money, they do not reform prisoners, and they do not treat prisoners fairly.
But prisons have not always been this way. Before the 1800’s, the idea of prisons was non-existent. When someone committed a crime and was tried in court, the judge had the power to declare the accused guilty or not guilty. If the accused were deemed not guilty, he or she could walk away with no further punishment. However if he or she were deemed guilty, “the felon was usually given at the end of a rope or the swing of an axe” (Murphy 57). In the mid
1800’s, the prison system was created, however, these prisons were self-sustainable. The convicts did everything. They cooked and cleaned, painted and repaired what needed to be repaired, made their own clothes as well as making license plates for the outside world. The prison staff only oversaw and kept an eye on the prisoners; the staff did not provide any of the labor. But prisons ...
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...ersies. New York: Greenhaven, 2005.
Hanrahan, Clare, ed. American’s Prisons. Opposing Viewpoints. New York: Greenhaven, 2006.
Henry, Stuart. “The Threat of Incarceration Does Not Deter Criminal Behavior.” Haley 45-46.
“Imprisonment is Beneficial.” Stalcup 26.
Irwin, John and Michael Snedeker. “Prisons Are Violent and Dehumanizing.” Tipp 93-95.
Kishner, Brandi. “Prison Labor Exploits Inmates.” Hanrahan 121-2.
Lightner, David. “Journal of a Prisoner.” Prisons. New York: Greenhaven, 2006. 25.
Murphy, Francis T. “Prisons Should Punish Inmates.” Stalcup 57.
Rogers, Joseph W. “Prisons Alone Cannot Reduce Crime.” Tipp 55.
Stalcup, Brenda, ed. America’s Prisons. Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven, 1997.
Taylor, Jon Marc. “The Prison System Does Not Work.” Stalcup 21-22.
Tipp, Stacey L, ed. America’s Prisons. Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven, 1991.
Shaw, V. N. (1998). Productive labor: A secondary goal but primary activity. Prison Journal, (78), 186.
When envisioning a prison, one often conceptualizes a grisly scene of hardened rapists and murderers wandering aimlessly down the darkened halls of Alcatraz, as opposed to a pleasant facility catering to the needs of troubled souls. Prisons have long been a source of punishment for inmates in America and the debate continues as to whether or not an overhaul of the US prison system should occur. Such an overhaul would readjust the focuses of prison to rehabilitation and incarceration of inmates instead of the current focuses of punishment and incarceration. Altering the goal of the entire state and federal prison system for the purpose of rehabilitation is an unrealistic objective, however. Rehabilitation should not be the main purpose of prison because there are outlying factors that negatively affect the success of rehabilitation programs and such programs would be too costly for prisons currently struggling to accommodate additional inmate needs.
The idea of prison work programs in America is not a new idea. In 1682, Pennsylvania attempted to utilize hard labor in state prisons but the practice did not come into fruition until 1773. Under the direction of the American Correctional Association, along with watchdog groups, today's prisons operate under high standards. "No single phase of life within prison walls is more important to the public or to the inmate than efficient industrial operations and the intelligent utilization of the labor of prisoners," stated a Federal Bureau of Prisons report in 1949. “This statement is still true today, nearly 50 years later”...
We live in a society today filled with crime and fear. We are told not to go out after a certain hour, always move in groups, and even at times advised to carry a weapon on ourselves. There is only one thing that gives us piece of mind in this new and frightening world we live in: the American penal system. We are taught when growing up to believe that all of the bad people in the world are locked up, far out of sight and that we are out of reach of their dangerous grasp. Furthermore, the murderers and rapists we watch on television, we believe once are caught are to be forgotten and never worried about again. We wish on them the most horrible fates and to rot in the caged institution they are forced to call their new home. But, where do we draw the line of cruelty to those who are some of the cruelest people in our country? And what happens when one of this most strict and strongest institution our nation has breaks down? What do we do when this piece of mind, the one thing that lets us sleep at night, suddenly disappears? This is exactly what happened during and in the after effects of the Attica prison riot of 1971. The riot created an incredibly immense shift and change not only in the conditions of prisons, but also in the security we feel as American citizens both in our penal system and American government. The Attica prison riot brought about a much-needed prison reform in terms of safety and conditions for inmates, which was necessary regardless of the social backlash it created and is still felt today.
Davis discusses the history of the justice system and how the Penitentiary replaced capitol and corporal punishment. She defines Penitentiary as “Imprisonment was regarded as rehabilitative and the penitentiary prison was devised to provide convicts with the conditions for reflecting on their crimes and, through penitence, for reshaping their habits even their souls.3” though the idea of the penitentiary is arguable a new idea during the American Revolution. The penitentiary process was so that prisoners could learn from what they have done by a process of separation and rehabilitation. After slavery and during the early 20th century the level of crime rates rose during the early 1920’s to 1940’s. In the Article Less crime more punishment Adler4,
Stickrath, Thomas J., and Gregory A. Bucholtz. "Supermaximum Security Prisons Are Necessary." Supermax Prisons: Beyond the Rock. Lanham, MD: American Correctional Facility, 2003. Rpt. in America's Prisons. Ed. Clare Hanrahan. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2006. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
The overpopulation in the prison system in America has been an on going problem in the United States for the past two decades. Not only does it effect the American people who are also the tax payers to fund all of the convicts in prisons and jails, but it also effects the prisoners themselves. Family members of the prisoners also come into effect. Overpopulation in prison cause a horrible chain reaction that causes nothing but suffering and problems for a whole bunch people. Yet through all the problems that lye with the overpopulation in prisons, there are some solutions to fix this ongoing huge problem in America.
According to Mark Early, president of the Prison Fellowship International, the Bureau of Justice Statistics report shows that there are 19 states that have prisons operating at 100 percent capacity and another 20 are falling right behind them. There is no wonder why the overcrowding of prisons is being discussed everywhere. Not to mention how serious this predicament is and how serious it can get. Many of the United States citizens don’t understand why this is such a serious matter due to the fact that some of them believe it’s not their problem. Therefore they just don’t care about it. Also, some Americans may say that they don’t care about what could happen to the inmates due to repercussions of overcrowding, because it’s their own fault. In order to cure this growing problem people have to start caring about what’s going on, even if it’s to people who might deserve it.
Private prisons in the United States, came about in the early 1980s when the war on drugs resulted in a mass wave of inmates, which led to the lack of the prison system’s ability to hold a vast number of inmates. When the cost became too much for the government to handle, private sectors sought this as an opportunity to expand their businesses through the prison industry. Since the opening of private prisons, the number of prisons and inmates it can hold has grown over the last two decades. With the rising number of inmates, profits have also substantially grown along with the number of investors. But what eventually became a problem amongst the private prison industry was their “cost-saving” strategies, which have been in constant debate ever
Prisons have been around for decades. Keeping housed, those of our society who have been convicted
Through two metal, cold doors, I was exposed to a whole new world. Inside the Gouverneur Correctional Facility in New York contained the lives of over 900 men who had committed felonies. Just looking down the pathway, the grass was green, and the flowers were beautifully surrounding the sidewalks. There were different brick buildings with their own walkways. You could not tell from the outside that inside each of these different buildings 60 men lived. On each side, sharing four phones, seven showers, and seven toilets. It did not end there, through one more locked metal door contained the lives of 200 more men. This life was not as beautiful and not nearly as big. Although Gouverneur Correctional Facility was a medium security prison, inside this second metal door was a high wired fence, it was a max maximum security prison. For such a clean, beautifully kept place, it contained people who did awful, heart-breaking things.
“The history of correctional thought and practice has been marked by enthusiasm for new approaches, disillusionment with these approaches, and then substitution of yet other tactics”(Clear 59). During the mid 1900s, many changes came about for the system of corrections in America. Once a new idea goes sour, a new one replaces it. Prisons shifted their focus from the punishment of offenders to the rehabilitation of offenders, then to the reentry into society, and back to incarceration. As times and the needs of the criminal justice system changed, new prison models were organized in hopes of lowering the crime rates in America. The three major models of prisons that were developed were the medical, model, the community model, and the crime control model.
Incarceration has been the center of the United States justice system ever since the opening of the nation’s first prison. In order to understand how the aspects of the first corrections institutions correlate to later correctional practices seen today. Whether it was temporary or permanent, there has always been some form of detainment for offenders, and they were always held against their will. Imprisonment of offenders in earlier times was done primarily to hold the accused until the authorities determined the offender’s actual punishment. Jails and prisons create a vicious and expensive cycle of crime that usually just end up overcrowding correctional facilities.
The origin of the word prison comes from the Latin word to seize. It is fair to say that the traditionally use of prison correspond well with the origin of the word; as traditionally prison was a place for holding people whilst they were awaiting trail. Now, centuries on and prisons today is used as a very popular, and severe form of punishment offered to those that have been convicted. With the exception however, of the death penalty and corporal punishment that still takes place in some countries. Being that Prison is a very popular form of punishment used in today's society to tackle crime and punish offenders, this essay will then be examining whether prison works, by drawing on relevant sociological factors. Furthermore, it will be looking at whether punishment could be re-imagined, and if so, what would it entail?
Prison was designed to house and isolate criminals away from the society in order for our society and the people within it to function without the fears of the outlaws. The purpose of prison is to deter and prevent people from committing a crime using the ideas of incarceration by taking away freedom and liberty from those individuals committed of crimes. Prisons in America are run either by the federal, states or even private contractors. There are many challenges and issues that our correctional system is facing today due to the nature of prisons being the place to house various types of criminals. In this paper, I will address and identify three major issues that I believe our correctional system is facing today using my own ideas along with the researches from three reputable outside academic sources.