The Department of Corrections Department of Corrections is an agency of the state that is responsible for the supervision and management of convicted felons. The Department of Corrections allows the protection of the community by operating safe, secure facilities that keep offenders under firm, fair practices. There is a wide range of treatment including educational and vocational programs that help the offenders become rehabilitated citizens. Corrections has been around for centuries. The corrections history of New York and of Utah are just a few pieces of a huge puzzle of corrections. "That human institutions require periodic redesign, if only because of their tendency to decay is not a minor fact about them, nor easily understood. Taken the span of history, there is no more important lesson to be learned." The history of New York's Corrections starts with the Fort Amsterdam Era. Fort Amsterdam was erected in 1625. Its facilities were dungeon-like. Its prisoners included unruly soldiers, native people that were uncompliant, and debtors. Next came States Huys. It was built in 1642. This Corrections facility also served as a tavern, a court, and a city hall. In 1699 Stats Huys was condemned as unfit and could no longer be used as a jail and judicial center. Next the New York City Hall was constructed. Many dangerous prisoners were kept in the basement until they had their court proceedings. But in 1700 the basement's security was proved to be inadequate, so guard's were hired to watch the prisoners. In 1759 the first facility was built specifically for use as a jail. It was named New Goal. Most of the jail housed civilian lawbreakers except for a few debtors and paupers. 1775 brought... ... middle of paper ... ...so help the cases progress faster as an accused legal options will be already made clear to him by his/her lawyer. Lawyers are absolutely necessary for major cases, as the accused may not understand his legal rights clearly or may not know how to defend himself correctly in the correct the manner during trial in court. Court judges in Provincial Court were generally looser than those in Ontario Supreme Court as that the one we saw in Supreme Court seemed more serious, lacked in emotional expressions, but also easily bored. However in Provincial Court, they were serious but there was room for humour and understanding of the accused's situation. Over all they looked like they enjoyed their jobs. All in all, the system we currently have cannot be any better as it is efficient as humanly possible without violating any individuals rights as in the Charter.
“Cook County furnishes two-thirds of the state’s prison inmates, sixteen thousand new ones a year (Bogira).” Cook County was built to help make the jail system easier by toting its large holding capacity. It is noted in the book that opening day of the courthouse, during prohibition, had processed 1,341 prisoners while the prison had a capacity for 1,302 prisoners (Bogira 54). A crime is an offense that can be prosecuted by the fullest extent of the law; County Board Secreta...
It was felt that it was better for diseased people to stay outside of the prison walls so the sickness would not spread to the others. The penitentiary was not equipped to deal with death because it had no cemetery but still had to pay for a gravedigger if someone died on the inside.
One of the first topics discussed by Jacobs is the history of the prison and prison organization. The beginning days of Stateville
be able to have an attorney at his trial despite not being able to afford one. Lewis’ explains, “Or
“…regarded it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison” (Hawthorne). This quote from The Scarlet Letter is actually true. Prisons were among the first buildings built among colonization. The prisons were not for punishment- that was usually done publicly. Punishments fell into the four categories of fines, public shame, physical chastisement, and death. These prisons were usually just holding places for those awaiting trial or awaiting punishment. During the 18th century, there was a dramatic change in the look and function of prisons. With the industrial revolution came growing cities, capitalism, and crime. Americans began
costly and troublesome; the jails were easy to breach and under then existing law the
The first prisons in the United States were established as penitentiaries, were offenders paid for their sins. The English Workhouse was one of the United States first penitentiaries. This place was early designed for punishment of the poor. As time passed, the English realized they should imprison criminals of all kind. The workhouse was a place of hard labor. People that supported the wo...
today’s first private prisons. Initially being built to reduce overcrowding and cut cost from the regular
The Pennsylvania system is a method of imprisonment based on the principle that solitary confinement reforms prisoners. The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, which was mainly made up of Quakers, promoted it. Solitary confinement started in 1829 at the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. The Eastern State Penitentiary was founded on the Pennsylvania System. The prisoners there were kept in cells 12x7.5x16 feet. They saw nobody, except for institution officers and occasional visitors. The inmates were kept ...
"Today's system, where imprisonment is a common penalty for most crimes, is a historical newcomer." Many crimes during 1718 and 1776 were punishable by death. This was usually done by hanging, sometimes by stoning, breaking on the rack and burning at the stake. Towards the end of the 1700's people realized that cruel punishment did little to reduce crime and their society was changing the population grew and people started to move around more frequently. There had to be a search for new punishments. "New punishments were to rely heavily on new ideas imported from Europe in the writing of such social thinkers of the Enlightenment as the baron de Montesquieu, Voltaire, Thomas Pain and Cesare Beccaria". These thinkers came to believe that criminals could be rehabilitated."
In 1682, William Penn arrived in Philadelphia and succeeded in expanding The Great Law. The Great Law emphasized hard labor in a house of correction as punishment for most crimes. In the 1800s, two reformation systems were introduced. These systems are known as the New York System and the Pennsylvania System. The New York System, also known as the Auburn System was a more cost effective labor and the state negotiated contracts with the manufactures. The New York System evolved into the Congregate System. The system believed in hard labor in shops in the day and solitary confinement at night. The rule of silence and strict discipline were used. The New York System believed to have reformation through good work habits and discipline. The only prison to use this system was the Auburn Prison in 1816. If the prisoners were to learn the advantages and satisfaction of hard work and thrift, the New York System believed there could be no better way than to be compelled to work together in harmony, if such a system also offered the potential for inmates to grow and harvest their own vegetables, raise and butcher their own meat, make their own clothes, and manufacture other items for use or sale by the state, such a benefit to the budget could not be
The first solitary confinement penitentiary, Western Penitentiary, was founded in 1826 with two-hundred solitary cells. Soon after the development of this penitentiary, the penal reformers decided that solitary confinement wasn’t
Many citizens in the general public would consider the living conditions of correctional facilities to be either too luxurious or too savage. Few would relatively contemplate the conditions to be in between assumptions. For an example in the article, Ross presents the myth of most convicts being provided sufficient health care benefits. However, due to the limitations of
says “The prison offered no opportunity for employment, so they spent their time drinking, gambling, playing cards, fortune–telling, dancing, singing, begging from visitors, fighting with one another, dressing up in men’s clothing, and reading improper books” (pg.2). The system adapted for these prisoners was carless and a promotion of their criminal acts rather than giving opportunity for success.
The courts have the function of giving the public a chance to present themselves whether to prosecute or defend themselves if any disputes against them rise. It is known to everyone that a court is a place where disputes can be settled while using the right and proper procedures. In the Criminal court is the luxury of going through a tedious process of breaking a law. Once you have been arrested and have to go to court because of the arrest, you now have a criminal case appointed against you. The court is also the place where a just, fair and unbiased trial can be heard so that it would not cause any disadvantage to either of the party involved in the dispute. The parties are given a chance to represent themselves or to choose to have a legal representative, which is mostly preferred by many.