Solitary Confinement and Prison

¶ … History Of Penitentiaries

With nearly 10% of its population incarcerated, it is important for Americans to understand the purpose and history of penitentiaries in this country. To this end, this paper reviews the relevant literature to provide a history of punishment, the history of prison development, and a comparison of the Pennsylvania system and the Auburn systems. Finally, an analysis of the impact and involvement of prison labor over time is followed by a summary of the research and important findings concerning the purpose and history of penitentiaries in the conclusion.

History of punishment

Although humans have used various punishments for different purposes such as infractions of social, religious or legal codes such as the Code of Hammurabi for millennia (Voglis, 2002), the term has assumed a formalized modern meaning that includes a legal process. For instance, according to the definition provided by Black's Law Dictionary (1990), punishment is "any fine, penalty, or confinement inflicted upon a person by the authority of the law and the judgment and sentence by a court, for some crime or offense committed by him, or for the omission of duty enjoined by law" (p. 1234). While crimes of omission are rare (i.e., failure to pay taxes), the punishments for either case may include incarceration as discussed below.

History of prison development

Like punishment, buildings that were specifically designed for involuntary physical confinement also date to antiquity (Morris & Rothman, 1999). Although the buildings that can be regarded today as prisons date to antiquity, the historical sources for these early prisons have been lost or remain fragmented, and they can only be explained today in terms of modern penology (Morris & Rothman, 1999). Nevertheless, it is clear that humans have recognized the need to separate certain types of criminal offenders from the general population for thousands of years. For instance, Morris and Rothman report that, "In the Western tradition the practice occurs as early as the Greek myths and the Book of Genesis, and it is usually classified as part of the wider category of physical punishments that restrict an individual's freedom of movement" (p. 3).

Comparison of the Pennsylvania system and the Auburn system

In the early 19th century, the Quakers were responsible for developing the Pennsylvania system for penitentiaries, while the Auburn system that followed a few years later incorporated some innovations that were intended to improve the field of corrections (May, 1995). The Pennsylvania system was predicated on the notion that prisoners must be kept separate from each other. For instance, according to Williams (1996), "The Pennsylvania system of prison discipline is based on the idea that convicts should be separated from one another by confining only one inmate in a cell" (p. 188). By contrast, the Auburn system also used solitary confinement as well as enforced silence among prisoners (Williams, 1996). In both cases, prisoners were expected to perform meaningful work to help support their prisons (Williams, 1996), and the impact and involvement of prison labor since then are discussed below.

Impact and involvement of prison labor over time

By the turn of the 20th century, the brutal conditions in many of the nation's prisons, including the use of convict leasing to private enterprises and the unfair competitive advantage this caused, resulted in a number of changes that resulted in prison labor in the form of so-called "chain gangs" being used for public works projects (Chain gangs, 2017). Chain gangs, though, were also brutal punishments and they are still used in many states today, especially in the South (Ford, 2013). Most penologists, however, agree that providing inmates with employment opportunities represents an important step in reducing the incidence of prison violence and the recidivism rate by providing them with job skills (Derrick & Scott, 2004).