Transcript HISTORY OF CORRECTIONS

Chapter 2
The History
of Punishment
History of Corrections
• Why the system evolved to its present
form
• What patterns and cycles help explain
changes in correctional practices and
policies
• What legacies should we be sensitive
to as we try to improve the system
Origins of Punishment
• Concept of punishment not present in early human
groups
• Kin policing included vengeance based on clan
strength
• Power of victim and offender critical to setting
punishment
• Lex talionis: equivalent retaliation
– Restricted amount of punishment to prohibit excess
– Not a prescription for justice
– Financial penalties very common in practice
Ancient (classical) Civilizations
• Greeks desired more utilitarian goals than
vengeance/retribution
• Deterrence became the goal/justification
• Punishments largely corporal, enslavement
• Death generally reserved for slaves, traitors
and military until late in Roman Empire
• Imprisonment used mainly to assure
presence at trial, torture
Medieval Era
• Christianity introduced use of social
isolation
– Expiation: Penance, time to contemplate sins
– Origin of “penitentiary”
• Mercy was initially the guiding concept
• Basis in view of “good” God
• Amputation, flogging, and so on introduced
as secular powers of church expanded
Medieval Gaols (jails)
• Dungeons held powerful political prisoners
• Private control common
• Fees for room and board, removal of
shackles, etc.
• Debtors, criminals, insane, unwed mothers
jailed together
• Sanitation poor even by medieval standards
The King’s Peace
• Concept originated as Roman justification
of control
• Monarchs seen as God’s chosen
• People were virtual property of monarch
• Acts against individuals harmed state,
monarch
• Victim’s role shrank to that of witness
c. 1200
• Limits on monarchy imposed by
Magna Carta (1215) benefited nobles
Urbanization 1500–1700
• Growth of cities led to (caused) increase
in crime
• Attempts to deter based on painful public
punishments, executions
• Frequency and savagery of punishment
increased but crime was unabated
• Bridewells and other “poor houses” used
to clear streets of beggars, motivate hard
work, regular schedule
• Transportation to penal colonies (U.S.,
Australia) added to corporal, capital and
financial penalties
Classical School – Enlightenment
• c. 1700 as part of movement to democracy
• Focus is on role of law and government
• Replaced spiritual view, divine right of
monarchs, etc.
• Stressed equality of free will, rational
choice
• Savage punishments failed to deter
Main Ideas of the Classical School
1. Free will/individual dignity:
basis of civil liberties
2. Rational, egocentric view of man:
rejected death penalty, torture
3. Utilitarianism: seeks greatest good for
greatest number
4. Pleasure–pain principle
– People choose acts that will maximize pleasure,
minimize pain.
– Law should guide these choices in socially
beneficial directions.
– Basis of deterrence
EARLY AMERICA
• Misfits “went west”
• Little concern with crime prior to urbanization:
English traditions utilized
• Many “loopholes” especially where severe
punishment was involved
• Humane treatment stressed by founding fathers
(e.g., B. Rush)
• Reform tradition established, over-use of prisons
bemoaned early in U.S. History
“Traditions” of Imprisonment
Established in Early U.S. Prisons
• Separation from society – rural locations
• Discipline – all aspects of life regulated
• Labor – tired, busy inmates easier to
control
• Methods of achieving these has varied
• These basic goals remain largely
unquestioned nearly 200 years later
The Pennsylvania or
“Segregate” System
• Based on Quaker rejection of violence
• Explicative philosophy/goal
• Inmates entirely isolated from others
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No need for corporal punishments
“Dead to the world”
Work a priviledge, releif from boredom
Production inefficient
Suicide and insanity common
The Auburn or
“Congregate” System
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Explicative goal – solitary cells
Group work, meals, etc – efficient
Code of silence enforced with whips
Early wardens famed for sadistic treatment of
inmates and guards
• Became dominant due to economics of
production, construction, etc.
• Gave way to “Big House” as overcrowding
undermined silent system: immense castle-like
prisons were human warehouses that
symbolized state power
The Positive School
• Late 1800s as science replaces religion as
object of faith
• Social problems solvable by science
• Each individuals is unique
– This limits power to choose
– Treatment progress, not act, should determine
release date
– Rewards for working at treatment, disciplined
labor, and good behavior should be used to
reduce recidivism
The Reformatory
• Emerged in 1870s, based on labor, education and
ability to “earn” privileges, release on parole
• A. Machanochie – Norfolk Island Penal Colony
• Walter Crofton – Irish prisons
• Zebulon Brockway – Detroit House of Correction
for Women and Elmira (NY) Reformatory
• Productive labor eliminated by courts as unfair
competition
– replaced with recreation, military drills
– tired busy inmates easier/cheaper/safer to handle
Reformatory Prisons (cont.)
• Reform – use of all available methods to
alter behavior
• Modeled on factories, schools
• Dominant in Northeast and Midwest
Regional Factors
• Southern states left inmates under county
control until early 1900s
• Slavery the model for offender treatment
in south
• Factories the northern model
• Discrimination normative in treatment of
southern inmates
Southern Prisons
• Reformatory movement and positivism
ignored in South
• Slavery model dominated; permitted for
felons under 13th Amendment
– Plantations in Southeast
– Road gangs in mid-South
• Privatization used extensively
– Lease system and contract labor
– Conditions deplorable
– Violated federal laws
Federal Bureau of Prisons
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Arose in response to:
1) Increase in number of federal laws, prisoners
2) Southern abuses of inmates under lease
systems
3) Problems with state prison crowding
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Facilities at Leavenworth KS, Atlanta GA,
and others opened 1907–1928
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All immediately overcrowded
All still in operation today
Federal Bureau of Prisons formally
created in 1930
The “Progressive” Era
• Positivism, optimism, prosperity
• Humane treatment, diagnosis, and
classification became standard expectations
• Reform efforts failed to change basic
brutality of imprisonment
• Experimentation with prison democracy
Women, Juveniles and Minorities
under the “Progressives”
• Savage, discriminatory treatment of
African-Americans by police, courts and prisons
remained the norm
– Distinction between lynching and executions often
unclear as Klan dominated C.J. in many areas
• Special “juvenile” status created
– Concern with family welfare
– “Americanization” of immigrants
• Science justified differential treatment
of women
– Their alleged “passivity” allowed experimentation,
improved treatment
Warehouse Prisons
• Crash of 1929 ended reform era
• Concern with protecting jobs of non-criminals
ended productive prison industries
• Hawes-Cooper Act (1929)
– Products of prison labor subject to the laws of the state
to which they were shipped
• Ashurst-Sumners Act (1935)
– Further restricted the sale of prison products
– 1940 amendment stopped the sale of items produced
with inmate labor
Warehouse Prisons (continued)
• Riots common in 1930s due to enforced
idleness, bad conditions
• World War diverted attention, reduced crime
• Riots in 1950s renewed interest in prison
reform
• Liberalism of 1960s encouraged new
attempts at offender rehabilitation
The “Hands–Off” Era
• Rights–versus–privileges doctrine
– “rights” are protected by the Constitution but
“privileges” are controlled by the agency
– conviction meant the loss of all rights;
– anything given to inmates beyond food, shelter, and
clothing was a privilege
• Courts occasionally heard challenges to legality of
convictions
• Prison conditions were beyond court jurisdiction
prior to late 1960s
The Due Process Revolution
• Cooper v. Pate (1964) – inmates can access courts
• Holt v. Sarver (1970) the turning point
– A few 1st, 4th, 5th, 8th and 14th Amendment rights given
to inmates
• Pugh v. Locke (1976)
– the “totality of conditions,” the central issue in 8th
Amendment cases
• Ruiz V. Estelle(1981)
– overcrowding an 8th Amendment violation
• “Building tenders” (inmate guards) banned by
Holt and Ruiz
The Anti–Crime Backlash
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Crime and disorder of late 1960s caused concern
Loss of faith in rehabilitation
Economic problems encouraged spending cuts
Media focus on crime increased
Reagan declared “War on Drugs “
Federal courts overturned many “due process”
decisions
• “Hands-On Era” of Court intervention ended in
mid 1980s
• Limited intervention remains in “one hand on,
one hand off” era of present
The “New Penology”
• Traditional penology
– Based on law and criminology
– Emphasizes punishment and rehabilitation
• New Penology
– Risk management and administrative efficiency
– Risk estimates use actuarial methods
• factors that predict recidivism for broad categories
– Does not try to reduce crime
– Goal is to improve system coordination