While the history of corrections in America dates back to 1773, with New Gate Prison in East Granby Connecticut, the Walnut Street Jail is usually the first significant reference we find to the American prison system. It became the state prison for Pennsylvania in 1791. The system that was used for the prison differed from what was traditionally used, as the founders, who were in part Quakers, had a radical change of heart when dealing with the criminals of their times. Up until that point, most criminals were shamed, brutally beaten, banished or sent to their deaths. The new belief was that by allowing a criminal a reprieve from the harsh treatments that had been the norm of the times, they would be able to change their ways. The Pennsylvania Prison System is also known as the “separate” system of prisons, because solitude was the means by which the prisoners would obtain their place as a person able to live once again in civilized society. The founders thought that a person was, in a natural state, good, and that by giving the criminals solitude, they would be able to see the error of their ways and change for the better. The founders of the Pennsylvania Prison System believed that they were doing humanity a great and well needed service, and this belief was the foundation for their system of corrections.
In Europe as in the American colonies, most of the punishments for criminals were extreme and harsh. Whippings, the use of the stockades, banishment, and capital punishment were the only forms of corrections utilized by the criminal justice system of that era. Although there were places of confinement for pretrial detainees in the early days, there were no established places for long-term incarceration. So we can ask, when and why prison became a punitive response to criminal misbehavior. The Oxford History of Prison gives us some insight:
As Benjamin Rush, the Pennsylvania physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence, argued: ‘Capital punishments are the natural offspring of monarchial governments. … Kings consider their subjects as their property, no wonder, therefore, they shed their blood with as little emotion as men shed the blood of their sheep or cattle. But the principles of a republic government speak a different language. …An execution in a republic is like a human sacrifice in religion.'” (Morris and Rothman 114).
It shouldn’t surprise us that these words, coming from a founding father of our country sound so harsh and bitter. The colonists wanted to create a place in which they could live without the same type of persecutions that had been dealt out in their homelands. The thinkers of the time wanted to become more empathetic to the plight of the people, and so they devised a way to distinguish themselves from the countries which had executed many of their criminals, instead hoping to find a way to help the criminal, as well as to keep society safe. The question then became, what is it that can be done in order to protect society while sparing the criminal’s life? The Oxford History of Prison goes on to explain:
“…The states immediately confronted the question of what punishment should substitute for execution. If they were not to hang the convicted criminal, what penalty should they impose? The answer was incarceration, to have the offender serve a term, a very long term in prison. Pennsylvania led the way in turning the old Philadelphia jail at Walnut Street into a state prison.” (Morris and Rothman 114).
Incarceration then was preferable to execution of criminals, but we must recall what was intended by the founders of the Pennsylvania Prison System. The Quakers were a religious group, and as such, their main intention was to improve society through strict adherence to the Bible. The Quakers believed that men would only be able to see their own criminality if left alone with it; working while living alone, eating alone, and spending all of their time alone. The theory was best stated in a French text, Discipline and Punish:
In absolute isolation, as in Pennsylvania, the rehabilitation of the criminal is expected not of the application of a common law. but of the relation of the individual to his own conscience and to what may enlighten him from within. Alone in his cell, the convict is handed over to himself; in the silence of his passions and the world that surrounds him he descends into his conscience, he questions it and feels awakening within him the moral feeling that never entirely perishes within the heart of man.” (Foucault 238.)
This set the standard for the American prisons systems. Isolation was the main punishment, not the confinement itself. Each prisoner was kept completely to himself. The guards went as far as placing hoods over the inmates heads when placing them into their cells, or whenever movement was necessary. It was believed that the isolation was the key point in the punishment, therefore, the creators of the Pennsylvania Prisons gave much thought to the construction of the facility. Keeping all the inmates in solitary confinement was the main aspect, then the supervision of these cells became the second consideration of the construction crew. The design was similar to one that was presented in Europe by a philosopher named Jeremy Betham. In the text, Probation and Parole: Theory and Practice we learn exactly how the construction of the prisons were designed, and to what purpose they were used:
“The Pennsylvania Prison Society succeeded in having prisons built in Pittsburgh (Western State Penitentiary opened in 1826) and in the Cherry Hill section of Philadelphia (Eastern State Penitentiary opened in 1829). These institutions featured massive stone walls, 30 feet high and 12 feet thick, around a building that branched out from a central rotunda like the spokes of a wheel- architecture influenced by the panopticon penitentiary, a circular design. … The design has a guardhouse in the center and prevented prisoner contact: inmates remained in their 12 by 7 feet wide, 16 feet high cells and work areas, except for one hour of exercise in the yard, also designed to prevent inmate contact. Prisoners could not see one another, even at Sunday religious services, because pews were designed as individual cubicles.” (Abadinsky 140-41).
This design was to ensure the isolation which was the true punishment for the criminals. Life, as you may imagine, was an extremely lonely undertaking for those incarcerated in such a facility. The conditions became such that bred mental illness. We know from today’s society, that those with depression seek to be alone, and once they withdraw from society, their illness becomes even more exaggerated and pronounced. When dealing with someone who is already of a criminal mindset, this isolation can lead to violence, depression and other forms of mental illness.
One particular Danish study, Mental Health and Psychiatric Studies of Danish Prisoners in Solitary Confinement 1870-1920, concerned the sweeping effect of the Pennsylvania Prison System on the mind of the incarcerated. The Danish also incorporated the Pennsylvania Prison System in 1859, but by the 1860’s, they reported a high number of prisoners being taken to mental institutions following and during their incarceration. According to one author analyzing the data from the study:
“According to an analysis of this material, around one third of all inmates were negatively affected by solitary confinement. Slightly more than one third of these'”that is, 12% of all inmates'”should be regarded as highly serious cases: They were described, for example, as very sickly in appearance, deranged, hallucinating, having delusions . . . [or it was simply directly] stated that they could not bear the solitude” According to Bruun, more than half of those in long-term solitary confinement were severely affected by it, whereas the rest were just “tolerably” normal . Furthermore, according to one of the very few prisoners who later produced a written recollection of his stay in Vridsløselille during this period, the prison hospital (where he spent much of his time) functioned as a “little private madhouse”.” (Scharff Smith 22).
The effects of the solitary confinement were severe. Imprisonment meant a deterioration of the mind for many of those incarcerated under the Pennsylvania System’s strict adherence to isolation. Incoming prisoners often had a prevailing mental illness prior to their incarceration, and the isolation only exacerbated their condition. However, even though mental anguish was a very real effect of the incarceration, it was not the actual downfall of the Pennsylvania System in America.
In the end, it boiled down to finances. The Pennsylvania System was expensive, with each prisoner requiring their own private cell. The work the inmates could produce under those circumstances was far less than what was being accomplished by the prisons operating under the conglomerate system, otherwise known as the Auburn System. Both the Auburn System and the Pennsylvania System were being used at the same time. Housing far more prisoners and completing more work made the Auburn System a better choice for the American government. The book Living in Prison, explains the fall of Pennsylvania System:
“The success and failure of these systems [Pennsylvania and Auburn], however, proved to hinge on more practical considerations than who was most correct in their belief’s about prisoners’ souls. The Auburn-style prison turned out to be less expensive to build and operate, despite its foundation on pessimistic premises about the moral character of criminals. Also, it produced what many people judged to be a more positive effect on the behavior of prisoners….Pennsylvania was left standing ‘quite alone’ in its insistence upon complete separate confinement.” (Stanko, Gillespie, and Crews 48).
While the Auburn System worked for a few more decades, the thinking of the American people began to evolve, moving away from penance and more toward reform. As a result, even more substantial changes were made. Prisons became more concerned with rehabilitating the inmates, based on a medical model, where criminal behavior was thought to be a treatable condition. Although we have moved away from that model today, some programs still exist within the prison system that reflect a more treatment based model.
Today’s prison primarily concerns itself with punishment and not rehabilitation. There did not seem to be much progress in regards to the rehabilitation model to suggest that it was an effective correctional method. Unfortunately, we also do not have the funding we need to keep working at perfecting a method of punishment that will benefit both the society and the criminals themselves.
Although the Pennsylvania System is no longer in use in the United States today, a part of its legacy is still working within the prisons. With the use of the classification of prisoners and the advent of the ‘Supermax’ facilities, solitary confinement still exists. When prisoners are unruly to the point of being dangerous to themselves or others, solitary confinement is still used, however silence is not required. Another use of solitary confinement today is for the protection of the prisoner from others within the prison who may hurt him or her. This is used in cases where, perhaps, the criminal is a celebrity, or even in cases where transgender inmates are concerned.
The future of the American prisons looks bleak. Recidivism is high, our prisoners do not seem to learn their lesson from a stay within the prison institutions. Over-crowding is a major problem for nearly all of our prisons. With more and more statues being placed in the books, more and more laws are there to be broken, more people become incarcerated. The well known ‘war on drugs’ is a major cause of this effect as well as the ‘three strikes and you’re out’ laws which send a convicted felon back to prison for life if he commits two more crimes after being initially released. Additionally, our nationwide financial crisis is hitting the department of corrections hard all across the nation. Budgeting problems causing a freeze on the hiring of employees to staff the correctional facilities will soon lead to even more trouble as young people decide that a career in the criminal justice field may not be a wise career choice.
It is only too obvious that something must change in order for our prisons to continue to function at all. Perhaps one solution would be to change some of our laws in order to send fewer people into the system. Loosening the grip on drugs may accomplish that goal, but the question remains; whether our society sees things in that manner or not. So far, politicians seem to gain popularity when they are known to be ‘tough on crime’, which for them means making more laws that send more people to prison. Perhaps as a society, we must take a step back, examine whether or not that is truly necessary to keep our streets and people safe and then determine a better course of action. If we insist upon keeping the laws and pushing for more of them and being tough on crime, then we all must be prepared to open our pocket books and pay the price in cold hard cash. As the Pennsylvania System showed long ago, money is what it takes to keep a prison running, and if we as a society, do not either change our minds about what is really criminal or be willing to foot the bill in order to make the prisons habitable for prisoners, then we can expect that the current system will fail in short order.
Abadinsky, Howard. Probation and Parole: Theory and Practice. Columbus: Pearson, 2009.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. New York: Pantheon, 1977.
Morris, Norval, and David J. Rothman. The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society. New York: Oxford, 1995.
Scharff Smith, Peter. “Degenerate Criminals: Mental Health and Psychiatric Studies of Danish Prisoners in Solitary Confinement, 1870-1920”. International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology. March 23, 2009.
Stanko, Stephen, Wayne Gillespie, and Gordon A, Crews. Living in Prison. Westport:Greenwood, 2004.
