The Department of Corrections Essay

Andersonville was a Confederate prison built in 1864 at Andersonville, Georgia. It was designed to hold Union prisoners of war during the Civil War. It was official named was Camp Sumter, however it’s better known as Andersonville. It was built from the ground up by local slave labor. At the time it was 10 ½ acres long and designed to hold about 10,000 men. The camp was enclosed out of 15 to 17 inch hewed pine logs. Along the walls were guard towers (referred to as pigeon roosts by the inmates) placed every 90 feet around the stockade walls.

It was the Auburn jail that added a new system to imprisonment. It was solitary confinement. At the time many criminals had mental breakdowns being locked up in one room by themselves for years. It was then that a thirty five year rivalry between Pennsylvania and New York

Throughout the years, the use of imprisonment has varied, along with its influences of society. It is thought that although prisons have been around since the thirteenth century, prisons as we know them now to be have only been around for the last three centuries. The first uses of prisons were not seen as a form of punishment instead they were used as a way of making people do something. People would be held in prison until they paid their debts, or awaiting trial and then leading up to their sentence. McGowen (1995) suggests that from the early 1700s ‘bridewells’ a house of correction have existed, however at that time being used merely for vagrants and drunks. At the end of the sixteenth century there was a shift in punishment to imprisonment, along with this came a new, more humane idea of reform. Criminals would spend their days of prison carrying out hard labour. However after the American Revolution, imprisonment took a step back and there was another change. There was mass overcrowding within the prison service and although the death penalty was still being used it was a symbol of the power of the state. Therefore, an everyday way of dealing with offenders would be transportation to the colonies, being either Australia or America.

..no fences, no bars on the windows, no detention sash. Guards do not wear uniforms..the buildings look like a motel. Inmates may use telephones to call anyone anytime, they have keys to their own individual rooms, they have their own money, and they wear their own clothes. There are no restrictions on hours of watching television or visiting in the day rooms or

Before the 1820s, most prisons resembled classrooms where inmates lived in large rooms together like a dormitory. The newer prisons of the era, like New York’s Auburn Prison, shepherded men into individual cells at night and silent labor during the day, a model that would prove enduring. Women at Auburn, however, lived in a small attic room above

Overcrowding in our state and federal jails today has become a big issue. Back in the 20th century, prison rates in the U.S

Even though the prison was improving its conditions, they did not think about expanding even more. The purpose of the prison was to rehabilitate inmates through solitary confinement and with the overcrowding, it was impossible. With the overcrowding, prisoners began to fight each other and caused violent outbreaks. Soon it became unhealthy, dirty, and unsafe for inmates. In the end, the jail failed due to poor architecture and lack of staying organized. About 30 to 40 inmates were being placed in one room where they would all have to seep on the floor. It failed to focus on their goal which was to keep prisoners separately so that they could self-reflect. Later, the Eastern Pennsylvania Prison was built to replace the Walnut Street Jail. A prison in which also put their inmates in solitary

The criminal justice system is composed of four categories: law enforcement, legal counsel, courts, and corrections. I am going to focus on one of these subjects and the problems or issues that are within the corrections part of criminal justice usually refers to the events that occur after being sentenced in a court of law. During the past few decades many problems have arisen in this area, solutions have been discussed and put into use over the years as well. However, there are still problems that are being dealt with in today’s corrections.

Folsom is one of California's oldest prison. Engulfed with rich history Folsom is one of the first maximum-security prisons in our nation.Construction began in 1878, near a mining camp along the American River. The prison finally opened in 1880 with a capacity of around 1,500 inmates. The inmates spent most of the time in the dark,with no heating or plumbing, in cells with solid iron doors. After many deaths from suffocation, air holes were drilled into the cell doors and those doors are still used today.

American prison system incarceration was not officially used as the main form of punishment in United States (U.S.) until around the 1800’s. Before that time criminals were mainly punished by public shaming, which involved punishments such as being whipped, or branded (HL, 2015). In fact, President Lincoln codified the prison incarceration system in the Emancipation Proclamation that indicated no slavery would take place in America unless a person was duly convicted of a crime (paraphrased) (White, 2015). In this era prisons were used more as a place where criminals could be detained until their trial date if afforded such an opportunity. However, one of the main problems with this idea was the fact that the prisons were badly maintained, which resulted in many people contracting fatal diseases. Yet, according to White (2015) unethical and immoral medical experiments were also conducted on inmates’ leading to health failures. Moreover, because everyone was detained in the same prisons, adolescent offenders would have to share the same living space with adult felons, which became another serious problem in that adolescent were less mature and could not protect themselves in such environments

In 1837 after the creation of the state of Michigan, the very first correctional system was born. A committee was selected to build Michigan’s very first prison. The site was chosen near the current city of Jackson. Once the prison was constructed it housed approximately 37 inmates, which is only a fraction of the number that can be housed

The state prisons today were founded on the basis of the 1700s to 1800’s during the Age of Enlightenment. The English correctional facility referred to as a “gaol,” commonly known as a jail. They housed men, women, children, the mentally ill along with the civil and criminals. The individuals suffered from idleness, diseases, despair and malnutrition. The gaols were maintained by local authorities, classification did not exist, and the purpose of gaol was to detain or hold people for court.

The Auburn State Prison was built in 1816, occupied in 1821 and soon after became the model for succeeding American prisons. Quaker thinking, in that "repentance for one's wrongs was best attained through private contemplation, which was facilitated by the penitentiary concept", influenced the Auburn prison. (Carney,

The decision to build a new penal institution in New York was debated by New York state legislators for some time. The legislators were fearful that crime in New York, especially crime committed by males in their teens and early 20s, was rampant and that present correctional institutions were not doing a competent job of dealing with criminals (Pisciotta, 1983). In particular, there was in New York disillusionment over the effectiveness of penal institutions such as Auburn, Sing Sing, and Dannemora Prisons. The plan on which those prisons were organized, referred to as the congregate plan (meaning that prisoners slept in solitary cells, but worked and ate together during the day), did not seem to result in rehabilitation and reformation

The corrections system in America began mostly with the arrival of William Penn and his “Great Law.” This was back in 1682; the “Great Law” was based on humane principals and also focused on hard labor as a punishment. The corrections system really began to take hold in North America in the late 1700’s with the idea’s and philosophy of Beccaria, Bentham, and Howard. These philosophies were based on the thought that prisoners could be treated and reformed back into society. This hard labor was used as an alternative to other cruel forms of punishments that were used in earlier times such as physical abuse or even brutal death.