Prison Reform
“…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
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Dorothea noticed that the mentally ill were placed in prisons because people didn’t know what else to do with them. Her early family life, which consisted of an abusive alcoholic dad and a mother that was not in good mental health, was very troubling and led to Dorothea’s guardianship of her brothers. Dorothea became a teacher and then centered her life on prison reform and the creation of asylums and homes for the mentally …show more content…
Thomas Mott Osborne was a son of a wealthy manufacturer and worked for his father for many years. He served two terms on the Auburn Board of Education and in 1903 he was elected mayor of Auburn, New York and served one term. In 1913 he was appointed chairman of a state Commission on Prison Reform and this led to his work with prisons. According to the Osborne Association, Osborne was considered the “pioneer and prophet of prison reform.” Osborne was very unique in his reform style because he decided that to get an idea of what the prisons were actually like, he needed to become a prisoner. So, for a week Osborne was known as Tom Brown at the Auburn Prison. His goal was turning America’s prisons “from human scrap heaps into human repair shops.” Osborne worked as the warden of Sing Sing, a prison in Ossining, New York, for a while where his goal was to send prisoners back into society and hopefully never see them imprisoned again. After he spent time in prison and worked at Sing Sing, he worked with a former fellow prisoner named Jack Murphy to form the Mutual Welfare League. According to the Osborne Association, the Mutual Welfare League “…was a system of self-government, educational, and improvement programs for the men living at Sing Sing with the intention of preparing individuals in prison to return to productive lives in the community.” The League was one way Osborne contributed to the
It represented a new world of confinement that removed the convict from his community and regimented his life. It introduced society to a new notion of punishment and reform. (Curtis et al, 1985)
Dix’s life work has had a lasting effect on the care and treatment of the mentally ill. Her goals were never concretely set in her mind, she simply did what was best for the people and accomplished immeasurable good in her lifetime. Not only did she bring to light the plight of the mentally ill, she helped to open the door for hospitals and asylums to be built across the country and bring about overall change in the care and treatment of the patients. She believed, and was able to show, that the “insane” weren’t a lost cause. With proper care and treatment many were able to recover and lead normal lives. This was something that professionals at the time didn’t think was possible. She awoke the nations conscience to the plight of the mentally ill.
Known as an American philanthropist and reformer, Dorothea Dix transformed living conditions in prisons and established institutions for the mentally insane in 20 states, as well as Canada (“DIX”). Through her crusade for fair treatment of the mentally insane, Dorothea Dix exemplifies the ideals of her time – to protect the rights of all human beings, no matter their age, race, or mental capacity.
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.
Born in 1802, Dorothea Dix played an important role in changing the ways people thought about patients who were mentally-ill and handicapped. These patients had always been cast-off as “being punished by God”. She believed that that people of such standing would do better by being treated with love and caring rather than being put aside. As a social reformer, philanthropist, teacher, writer, writer, nurse, and humanitarian, Dorothea Dix devoted devoted her life to the welfare of the mentally-ill and handicapped. She accomplished many milestones throughout her life and forever changed the way patients are cared for. She was a pioneer in her time, taking on challenges that no other women would dare dream of tackling.
The correctional system is based on helping offenders become part of society and not commit any crimes. Many prisons begin the correcting criminals since they are inside the jails, but many prisons do not. Prisons provide prisoners with jobs inside the prison where they get very little pay close to nothing and many have programs that will help them advance their education or get their high school diploma. There are various programs prisons provide to prisoners to help them get a job or have a skill when they are released from prison. In contrast, prisons that do not provide programs or help to prisoners rehabilitate and enter society again will be more likely to commit another crime and go back to jail. The Shawshank Redemption prison did not
Prior to the American Revolution, colonists living in America were rarely locked in jail for long periods of time, with crimes often resulting in a punishment of hanging, public whipping, confinement to stocks, or branding.1 Jails were used as a place to temporarily confine people awaiting trial or punishment. The conditions in these jails were horrible, as sexes, types of criminals, and ages were heterogeneously mixed. By the late 18th century, these punishments were no longer as effective, due to an increase in population size, mobility and migration, and the emergence of a distinct poor class.2 Reformers saw the need for change, and aided by an increased moral standard following the colonial era, prisons were targeted for reform, becoming pe...
When the average person thinks of a prison, what is often the thought that comes to mind? Perhaps an environment of reform is envisioned, or maybe a place for punishment. Maybe someone sees them as modern leper colonies, where countries send their undesirables. It could be that prisons are all of these things, or they could be none. With these ambiguities in the general definition of a prison it is easy to say that the everyday person could have no real critical perspective on what they truly are. That being said, if the average person were presented with Angela Davis’s perspective, and the perspective of many scholars, they may be shocked to learn what prisons truly are. This perspective presents prisons as a profitable industrial complex very similar to the military industrial complex. Like the military industrial complex, in the “prison industrial complex,” investors make large amounts of money off the backs of imprisoned inmates. It is interesting to note how similar these two systems are, with closer analysis; it seems to me as though one may have developed from the other. On another note, the prison industrial complex also appears to have a correlation with the globalization of labor; which makes it possible to assume that one contributed to the development of the other here as well. However, where the prison industrial complex’s roots lie is not as big an issue as the simple question of the morality of the practice. A person can know the history of the issue all they want but the important matter is addressing it.
“In a world where there is so much to be done. I felt strongly impressed that there must be something for me to do.(Dix)” Few people can say that they have achieved as much as Dorothea Dix had in her her lifetime. Born in 1802 to Mary Bigelow and Joseph Dix, Dorothea Dix and her two younger brothers suffered poverty and abuse from their alcoholic parents. It is speculated that during this time she experienced severe depression which may have had a hand in inspiring her to reforming the treatment and care of the mentally ill. In 1814, she and her brothers escaped their parents by moving in with their wealthy grandmother in Boston. Having already been taught to read and write, she was then forced to become educated in acting as a “young lady” with the help of her great aunt; Dix greatly resented this at the time. During this period of her life, Dorothea Dix was acquainted with her cousin, who inspired her to open a “Little Dame School” in 1816, which she ran for three years before returning to Boston. In 1821, she opened another school catering to both poor and wealthy girls separately. She taught here until 1836 when she contracted tuberculosis. As per her doctor’s recommendation, she spent a long vacation in England until 1837, following the
Robert states that it was the Americans that invented the prison. "The history of prison in America is the history of a troubled search for solutions." Before we had prisons in America, criminals where dealt with in a swift and brutal manner. Many prisoner where dealt with by corporal or capital punishment. Jails did exist in this time but they were "primarily for pretrail detention" stated Pray.
Taylor, Jon. The Prison System Does Not Work . San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1997
Jack London’s writing while he was a prisoner at the Erie Canal Penitentiary, The Pen, showed many people that prisons are operated in a similar to the outside world in business. This system has been very affected on how it is run as well as it on the prisoners within the wall it is trying to keep out of society based on how bad the crime was them committed and when they will return to society.
“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.
Prisons around the world maintain vast amounts of information regarding their cultures, punishment styles, structural feats, religion base, and location. There are prisons located in the center of cities, on islands, in secluded areas, and in the public view. Work on these types of analyzations stem from famous sociologists, phycologists, and philosophers such as Michel Foucault, Tony Bennett, Emile Durkheim, David Garland, and Cesare Beccaria. All of these profound scholars has contributed some of the most amazing research into the Prison System, theories of crime and punishment, institutional reform, and theoretical penology. The Prison Museums that will be analyzed in this article will include Alcatraz (San Francisco), The Women’s Jail (Joburg,
Furthermore, it will be looking at whether punishment could be re-imagined, and if so, what would it entail? The use of prison as a form of punishment began to become popular in the early 19th century. This was because transportation to colonies had started to decrease; transportation was the removing of an individual, in this case an offender, from its country to another country; usually for a period of seven to ten years and in some cases for ever. During this time prison was now being used as a means for punishment, this was in response to the declining of transportation to colonies. Thus, instead of transporting offenders to other colonies, they were now being locked away behind high walls of the prison.