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History of Prisons

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History of Penitentiaries
Nelly Madrigals
CJ234
May 12, 2014
Sidney Hammond

History of Penitentiaries The prison system is a very important component of our society. The prisons house and rehabilitate offenders to ensure that once they do get released they will no longer be a danger to the community they live in. In the early 16th century the very first prison opened and through out the centuries the prison system evolved to what we have now. This paper will cover the history of punishment, prison development, a comparison of the Pennsylvania system and the Auburn system, and the impact and involvement of prison labor over time. (Seiter, 2011)
In the early 16th and 17th century prisons were used only to hold people meanwhile they are awaiting punishment. Very rarely was prison used as punishment. In these prisons men, women, girls, boys, were all held together no matter what the crime was that they committed. The guards of these prisons were negligent, therefor, people died of diseases like goal fever. In the18th century hard labor and imprisonment was beginning to be seen as the right punishment for petty offenders. Those who were convicted were shipped out to British colonies like America, Australia, and Van Diemen’s Land. Another type of punishment used was a prison hulk, which, were located inside these ships. The ships were anchored in the land and the prisoners were sent out in the early morning to work hard labor, and at night they would be loaded and chained. This type of prison hulk did encourage public opinion that hard labor was a worthwhile crime. In 1777, a group of reformers came together to recreate the prison system. They felt that prisoners should be put to work in hard labor, but the hard labor should not affect the prisoner’s health. “In 1791 Bentham, a prison reformer, designed the panopticon prison, which, allowed a centrally placed

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