Tarrant County jail was built in 1856 during the fort Worth Birdville controversy. Fortworth and Birdville were in competition to be the seat of county government. Fortworth won and supporters from both side feuded for the next four years. In the midst of all the controversy a local merchant, Epham Doggett put the money up for the construction of a jail. It was a one room wooden structure. During the Civil War the economy plummeted and there was a population decrease. The population went from 6,000 to 1,000 in a five year period. The famous cattle drive that ran through the town and the first railroad attracted new residents in 1876. With al the growth going on the courts could not keep up with the increasing criminal cases. In 1876 …show more content…
the Tarrant County Commissioners approved a $65,000 bond; $15,000 was designated for construction of a new jail. The Tarrant County jail was constructed but the funding was not approved to purchase an adequate lock system.
Soon after the inmates began transferring from the old jail to the new jail the prisoners began to escape. This was done by removing the bolts from the cells and doors. Poor construction caused a number of escapes from the new jail. The majority of the escapes were successful despite the fact that the jailer lived in a room right across from the inmates. Inmates would overtake the jailer and escape throughout the night. The newspaper began to make the escapes public information which placed fear in the community. The Sheriff and deputies spent a majority of their time for the next couple of years looking for and apprehending escaped inmates. Commissioners had come to the conclusion that even if the inmates were returned to the jail there would not be enough room to house them. It was then that another bond was approved for $60,000 to build another new jail. The new jail was built in 1884 with several improvements. The doors and cells were made of steel; the windows were covered with steel bars. A tunnel was constructed joining the courthouse and the jail. This provided a secure passage for the inmates to court with no exposure to the
public. Executions being performed in the old jail did not deter escapes and the new jail structure did not prevent escapes. Sometimes angry citizens would try to break into the jail to lynch prisoners. From 1896 to 1915 the new jail was deemed as an “easy to escape facility”. In 1901 three inmates overpowered Jailer George Dilliard. Dilliard fought back but outnumbered 8-1. The prisoners proceeded to let other prisoners out of their cells to freedom. Four ran through the tunnel to the courthouse where they blended in with the crowd and escaped. The other four engaged in a shoot out with officers until they were apprehended after they ran out of bullets. As years passed the escapes continued. Two inmates walked through unlocked doors; nine tied blankets together and lowered themselves to freedom, another dug her way out through the mortar using a spoon. Twenty-five escapes in thirty-four years. In March of 1915 another jail was built. This structure included seven stories, had its own power and heating plant. This jail contained over 200 facilities for men, women, and children. Still the overcrowding was a problem as criminal cases increased. By 1958 a new three million dollar jail was approved for construction. The new building would be 11 stories, house 600 inmates and contain a modern kitchen and dining facility. The Sheriff Department offices would be located in the basement. In the 1980’s and 90’s the same problem surfaced. The inmate population exploded as the crime rate increased. In February 1989 the county spent $305,000 on a barrack style building at Cold Springs that would house 168 inmates. Eventually the Texas Department of Corrections took custody 2,200 state prisoners. This eliminated the back log and the Cold Spring facility was closed. In 2003 it was reopened to alleviate overcrowding in the Tarrant County Jail once again. Inmates were housed in wire cages on the floor of the police administration building, in tent cities guarded with machine guns, some were housed in the Green Bay Warehouse. In 2007 the Green Bay was remodeled into a maximum security jail containing 1596 beds. The Tarrant County Corrections Center was finished in September 1991. It was the first city county jail in Tarrant County history with a price tag of $52 million. Consisting of 14 floors, recreation area and surveillance system with security office.
...selves from the problem, leaving inmates to continually be mistreated. Had they been transferred they then could have sought legal aid and/or media attention.
The first inmate to enter Kingston Penitentiary was Mathew Tavender who was sentenced to serve three years for grand larceny. He was placed in cell number four and was put two work as a stonecutter two days later. He was whipped on August 30, 1835 which was three months after his arrival, along with inmate number two, John Hamilton.
Firstly, many people emigrated from the urban northeast to the rural southwest during the 1760s which created a huge population increase in the Carolinas (as noted by the Censuses). The once agricultural
Alabama: A Documentary History to 1900 states “it is a truism that the Civil War altered the economic life of the south” (Griffith, Alabama: A Documentary History to 1900). Before the Civil War Alabama’s economy many depended on agriculture and a work force of slaves. A new south had been created that brought “free labor and greater diversification” (Griffith, Alabama: A Documentary History to 1900). This is in part due to the boom in the iron industry. Mills and mines had existed before the war, although not as influential as they became after the war. Even though cotton was still the dominant export of Alabama, coal iron and steel were becoming an increasing source of income (Griffith, Alabama: A Documentary History to 1900).
“…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
"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)"
...d feel of the courthouse. “To restore the interior, historic preservationist had to rely on remnants found from the original building, historic photographs, of which there were few, recollections of county residents who worked or visited the courthouse before the remodeling..”. “The 1910 courthouse closed in 2006 and the actual construction phase began in February of 2009.”
The question is there really a difference between private and public facilities, since the two are supposed to be different when it comes to cost and efficiency, also are the private facilities being run as a correctional facility at all? The goal of private prisons is to be more efficient and run cheaper than the average public-operated prisons. In a public prison, it cost a lot of money for the inmates to be taken care of, so the plan was to have a prison that is not owned by the government, but instead was owned by an owner who would guarantee to run their prison facility for less money, and still provide the same qualities and care as a public prison. However, that isn’t the case now. Private prisons are falling short on actually fulfilling those requirements.
costly and troublesome; the jails were easy to breach and under then existing law the
Gatlinburg did not start from scratch with what wee see today. From 1870 to 1900, the population of Sevier County grew from roughly 9,000 to 20,000 due to the Industrial Revolution and hit a plateau in 1910, staying for around fifty years (Population Growth Chart of East Tennessee Counties, 1820-1980). In 1960, the population of Sevier County started to skyrocket. In a mere twe...
today’s first private prisons. Initially being built to reduce overcrowding and cut cost from the regular
In the early years going to prison for a crime was not common. When people committed crimes, they were punished by corporal punishment, forced labor, social ostracism, and many far worse punishments. People began using imprisonment as a form of punishment after the American Revolution. In England these practice of imprisonment been taking place since the 1500s in the form of dungeons and other detention facilities. Prisons were one of the first buildings introduced in the New World. In early America prisons were not looked at like prisons are today, most crimes where punished on the spot and the person released. Most of the people that had long term sentences were people that owed debt. Other type of punishments that was used was fines, public shame, physical chastisement, and death. Misdemeanors were punishable by fines, just like some are today. The United States prison building efforts went through three waves. First the Jacksonian Era, which led to the increase use of imprisonment and rehabilitive labor as punishment for their crimes in almost all states by the time of the American Civil War. Second was the Progressive Era, which was after the civil war. The Progressive Era brought in the usage of parole, probation, and indeterminate sentencing. Third was in the early 1970s, by this time the number in prisons had increased five times.
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.
In most cases, that can be accommodated by moving some services to and meeting with customers on the first floor. Court hearings can be shifted to the first-floor municipal courtroom when the presence of inmates, currently incarcerated in the Holmes County Jail, is required. To force them to use the stairs while handcuffed and in leg shackles would present a hazard to the inmate and transport officers.
The “Tough on Crime” and “War on Drugs” policies of the 1970s – 1980s have caused an over populated prison system where incarceration is policy and assistance for prevention was placed on the back burner. As of 2005, a little fewer than 2,000 prisoners are being released every day. These individuals have not gone through treatment or been properly assisted in reentering society. This has caused individuals to reenter the prison system after only a year of being release and this problem will not go away, but will get worst if current thinking does not change. This change must be bigger than putting in place some under funded programs that do not provide support. As the current cost of incarceration is around $30,000 a year per inmate, change to the system/procedure must prevent recidivism and the current problem of over-crowed prisons.