In the 1920's and 1930's a new wave of crime had swept across the U.S. With the passage of the Volstead Act in 1920, producing and distributing alcohol became an extremely lucrative business. With this also came a sharp rise in organized crime in many of the big cities. Even worse, the crimes committed by members of these gangs became more violent. In July of 1933, J. Edgar Hoover was made the director of the newly formed FBI. Hoover decided that he was going to crack down on these criminals. Hoover chose to aim high and went after the heads of the crime gangs. The problem was that, no sooner did they manage to incarcerate the bad guys when their buddies in the crime organizations would bust them out. With this problem in mind, the U.S. Justice Department began looking into a maximum security prison that was inaccessible and thereby inescapable. When they found Alcatraz, it was almost too good to be true.
October 12, 1933- The U.S. Justice Department officially acquired Alcatraz from the military with plans to incorporate Alcatraz into the Bureau of Prisons.
April, 1934- Work began on Alcatraz to make the cellhouse more secure by replacing soft-iron square bars on the cells with rounded "tool-proof" bars. In addition, a new locking device was installed which allowed guards to open selected cells within a block. Metal detectors were installed on the dock and at the entrance to the cellhouse. Additionally, three new guard towers (right) were constructed to keep a birds eye view of the activities on the island.
Most of the military prisoners were released or transferred prior to control of the island switching hands, in June of 1934. However, 32 of the military's worst criminals remained on the island and became the first inmates of the U.S. Penitentiary, Alcatraz.
July 1, 1934- The U.S. Penitentiary, Alcatraz, formally opened with James A. Johnston, a retired California state prison official, as its first warden. At its inception, Alcatraz employed 52 full-time correctional officers, the most of any prison in the system.
Warden Johnston decided that the goal of Alcatraz was not going to be rehabilitation, but rather, it would be punishment to its inmates for the wrongs they had committed. Inmates were not permitted to have newspapers, radios, or magazines. In addition, it was decided that all incoming mail would be type-written by corrections officers, so that coded messages contained in the original letters could not be received by the inmates.
Kingston Penitentiary is located on the shore of Lake Ontario in Ontario, Canada. It has served as the main symbol of punishment in Canadian society. Penitentiary Houses were first created in Great Britain in 1779. It was on June 1, 1835 that Kingston Penitentiary formerly known as the Provincial Penitentiary admitted its first six inmates.
When people talk about Alcatraz, they usually remember it is an island with a prison on it, but many do not know what is included inside the prison. Two common places inmates were in most of the time were either the dining hall, where the prisoners and staff would eat their meals, or a library in which inmates could check out books and magazines. The Models Industries Building contained a laundry facility, and the New Industries Building contained a clothing factory, dry cleaning plant, furniture plant, and a brush factory where prisoners could work and earn money. Prisoners had the chance to make items such as gloves, furniture mats, and army uniforms. Military officers were found in the dining hall since that was where they ate their meals, but they were also found in the other places as well. Former Military Chapel was a small building, where the ground floor had quarters for the officers and their families who worked at the prison. In 1920, when the building was first built, the top floor of the building was used as a school and chapel, but in 1934 when Alcatraz became a Federal Penitentiary, the building became a Bachelor Quarters for unmarried officers. Later on, the officers and their families eventually stayed in Building 64 which was a three story apartment building. The best part of living in the prison for
On July 1st 1934, Alcatraz opened officially as a federal prison. Previously, the island of Alcatraz was a military prison that held criminals from the American Civil War. Alcatraz was meant to hold only the most disruptive inmates so they could learn how to follow rules. Alcatraz inmates lived under harsh conditions with few privileges.
The description of Alcatraz is sinister and quite mysterious. Many people describe it as a haunted attraction,
"During the early 20th century, inmate labor fueled the construction of a new cell house (the 600-cell structure still stands today) on Alcatraz, along with a hospital, mess hall and other prison buildings" (Alcatraz). In 1912, the new added on Alcatraz prison was the biggest reinforced concrete building in the world. The U.S. army wanted Alcatraz to be a federal prison that could hold prisoners that were too dangerous to be held in other penitentiaries. The first maximum –security facility of Alcatraz officially opened on July 1, 1934. James A. Johnston from San Francisco, California was the first warden at Alcatraz from 1874-1954, he hired one guard for every three prisoners. "The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) viewed Alcatraz as “the prison system’s prison,” a place where the most disruptive inmates could be sent to live under sparse conditions with few privileges in order to learn how to follow rules (at which point, they could be transferred to other federal prisons to complete their sentences)"
In the 1970s, prison was a dangerous place. Prison violence and the high numbers of disruptive inmates led prison authorities to seek new ways to control prisoners. At first, prison staff sought to minimize contact with prisoners by keeping them in their cells for a majority of the day. As time went on, the prison authorities began to brainstorm the idea of having entire prisons dedicated to using these kind of procedures to control the most violent and disruptive inmates. By 1984, many states began construction on super-maximum prisons. In California, two supermax facilities were built by the state: Corcoran State Prison in 1988, and then Pelican Bay in 1989. The federal government soon followed suit and in 1994, the “first federal supermax opened, in Florence, Colorado.” It was not much longer before supermax prisons could be seen all over the country (Abramsky). In Wisconsin’s supermax facility, with similar conditions being found in a majority of supermaxes, there are “100-cell housing units” that are in groups of 25 cells. These cells all face a secured central area. Technology plays a major role in keeping the facility to the highest security standards. Every cell’s doors are controlled remotely and the cells include “video surveillance, motion detection and exterior lighting” (Berge). With these technological securities, there are also procedural precautions. Inmates are kept in their cells for 23 hours a day until their sentences are done. This is said to be for prisoner and staff safety, although some feel otherwise. In 2001, 600 inmates at Pelican Bay went on a hunger strike, demanding reform. Those on hunger strike believed that the isolation and deprivation they faced was against their Eighth Amendment rights. ...
Mass incarceration has caused the prison’s populations to increase dramatically. The reason for this increase in population is because of the sentencing policies that put a lot of men and women in prison for an unjust amount of time. The prison population has be caused by periods of high crime rates, by the medias assembly line approach to the production of news stories that bend the truth of the crimes, and by political figures preying on citizens fear. For example, this fear can be seen in “Richard Nixon’s famous campaign call for “law and order” spoke to those fears, hostilities, and racist underpinnings” (Mauer pg. 52). This causes law enforcement to focus on crimes that involve violent crimes/offenders. Such as, gang members, drive by shootings, drug dealers, and serial killers. Instead of our law agencies focusing their attention on the fundamental causes of crime. Such as, why these crimes are committed, the family, and preventive services. These agencies choose to fight crime by establishing a “War On Drugs” and with “Get Tough” sentencing policies. These policies include “three strikes laws, mandatory minimum sentences, and juvenile waives laws which allows kids to be trialed as adults.
Herman, Peter G., Ed. The American Prison System. n.p.: The H. W. Wilson Company, 2001. Print.
In Taft, California, with a perimeter of razor wire, armed prison guards, supervise hundreds of medium security level federal inmates. Welcome to one of America's newest and fastest growing trends in the area of corrections. This new phenomenon is termed, The Corporation of Modern Corrections. Faced with an increase in prison overcrowding and aging institutions, court orders demanding immediate reform coupled with a straining budget, mandatory minimum sentences, and the public's attitude toward "getting tough on crime", America's justice system is in need of an overhaul. Thus, government leaders are ready to consider different options to help reduce the strain, while still meeting is legal responsibility to provide services. The option to emerge to the forefront is Prison Privatization - " the transfer of asset's and of production of public goods and services from government to the private sector."1 in other words, private interest is being given the opportunity to help alleviate the strain of taking care of a growing population more economically and efficiently than the government.
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
Capone lived in Alcatraz for 11 years and when he got out he fell ill with Neurosyphilis and died from his disease on january 25 1947.
Prisons have dated back to the twentieth century when the United States had almost two million people confined in prisons or jails. Prisons have been a form of government punishment that has shaped our nation to what it is today. The first jail was established in Philadelphia, in 1970. It was called the Walnut Street Jail and was recorded as the first use of imprisonment through solitary confinement. The basic principles of the new system were to reform those in prison, and to segregate those according to age, sex, and type of offenses charged against them (Schoenherr). The second prison was called Sing-Sing a...
“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.
We stepped off the large tour boat with a look of fright in both our eyes. Some joy was there, but knowing what went on in this place made us feel the way we did. To me, Alcatraz didn't really look like a shut down prison at that moment. It looked more like an old worn down cemetery. The paint on most of the buildings was chipped off all the way down to the wood. Most of the buildings had collapsed down to some cement foundations and old rusted poles hanging every other way. As we walked to the building where you start your tour, that was probably the only building at this place with cleanliness to it. They gave us our tour headphones, which take you through the whole prison with a audio guide telling you how it was in the prison. Not just how it was for the prisoners, but how it was for the guards too.
The first warden on Alcatraz was James A. Johnston, he started on July 1, 1934 (Fuller, 12) On the island, of course there were many rules to go by. First, there were no visitors accepted within the first three months of living on the island (Welcome to Alcatraz). Enforcing the rule of no talking was apart of their psychological punishment. The prisoners were locked in their cells for over half the day, fourteen hours a day (Oliver, 53). Hygiene was very strict. Each inmate was to shave 3 times weekly (Fuller, 11). No prisoners were allowed to visit their cells during the day. Inmates also worked as servants for families that lived on the island (Welcome to Alcatraz). These prisoners were granted with an excellent kitchen ( Welcome to Alcatraz). They were able to get as much of what they like, but no food could be thrown away. If you wasted your food, you were not allowed to have the next meal (Welcome to Alcatraz). If prisoners went against these rules, some of their punishments were they had to wear ball and chain, the would have to do manual labor, and go...