Preview

Federal Prison System

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2164 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Federal Prison System
The Federal
Prison System

Jesse Vohler
12-3 Smith
Essay
24 Oct. 2011
Jesse Vohler
12-3 Smith
24 October 2011
Federal Prison System Essay

The Federal Prison System Throughout history, the Federal Prison System has changed over the centuries. From hanging to lethal injections, the purpose of the prison system still remains the same. It holds as a chamber for those who have done wrong and break the law. Turning into a home for most inmates, death row would seem like the only way out. As the system keeps changing to this day, people of all ages will still shutter in the sound of the judge replying, “Guilty” and knowing how miserable their next memories will be in that cave they call ‘prison’. Two centuries ago, Philadelphia and Pennsylvania became the center of prison reform worldwide. The penalty of death was applied for murder, denying ‘the true God’, homosexual acts and kidnapping. Severe physical punishments were used for what were considered lesser crimes. As late as 1780, punishments such as the pillory and hanging were carried out in public.
An execution that year included two prisoners who were taken out amidst a crowd of spectators, walking after a cart in which two coffins and a ladder were toted in. Each had a rope about his neck and their arms were tied behind them. They were both hanged in the commons of the city
Philadelphia (Johnston). Because of the rapidly growing population, a new jail was begun in 1773 on Walnut
Street. The new prison had the traditional layout of large rooms for the inmates. Prisoners awaiting trial might barter their clothes for liquor or be forcibly stripped upon entering by other inmates seeking funds for the bar. The result was great suffering when the weather turned cold. It was also considered a common practice for certain women to arrange to get arrested to gain access to the male prisoners (Johnston). The first great advance of the prison system in America was the



Cited: Movement. Sifakis, Carl. “Debs, Eugene V.” The Encyclopedia of American Prisons. New York, New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2003 Movement. Sifakis, Carl. “Keyes, Asa.” The Encyclopedia of American Prisons. New York, New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2003 Movement. Sifakis, Carl. “Visiting Prisoners.” The Encyclopedia of American Prisons. New York, New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2003 Movement. Sifakis, Carl. “Women’s Prisons” The Encyclopedia of American Prisons. New York, New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2003 Sifakis, Carl. “AIDs” The Encyclopedia of American Prisons. New York, New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2003 Sifakis, Carl. “Community Service.” The Encyclopedia of American Prisons. New York, New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2003 Sifakis, Carl. “Electric Chair.” The Encyclopedia of American Prisons. New York, New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2003 Sifakis, Carl. “Shooting.” The Encyclopedia of American Prisons. New York, New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2003 Yang, Peter. “Visiting Weezy.” Rolling Stone. 14 Oct. 2010: 60. Print.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    |and prison inmates? What would happen if |inmates are in a state or federal factuality and keep for a longer period of time. |…

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Inmates were categorized by their offenses; Weighty offenders were allocated in solitary imprisonment without labor, as supplementary offenders worked across the date jointly in silence and were confined separately at night. Later the Walnut Road Jail came to be extremely overcrowded, two new prisons were crafted in Pittsburg and Philadelphia, that marked the progress of a penitentiary arrangement established in confinement. In distinct imprisonment, prisoners were grasped in isolation alongside all hobbies grasped in their cells. The Pennsylvania arrangement of distinct imprisonment came into attack due to harsh punishments and prisoners paining mental breakdowns due to…

    • 3118 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The colonists did however use jails, copying the English system of gallows, in order to hold defendants who were awaiting trial or for those already convicted and were awaiting their corporal or capital punishment. These jails had deplorable conditions. Poor men, women, and children were all housed together, with very little food or sanitary conditions. Offenders who could afford it paid a fee in order to avoid jail; this early bail system enabled the rich to pay a fee in order to be released. The conditions in both the English and colonial jails during the 1600s and 1700s were so deplorable that few doubted the need for reform (Richard P. Seiter,…

    • 1055 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Our correctional system punishes offenders, by putting them in jail, or in prison. In the early times, before prisons punishments were often cruel and torturous. The unsettling description of a man broken in half on a rack in the early 1700’s is just one of the ways crimes were punished at that time. Flogging was another. The last flogging was in Delaware on June 16, 1952. When a burglar got 20 lashes.”(2013, 07. How We Punish Offenders in Our System.)…

    • 419 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Mansfield Reformatory

    • 699 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Mansfield Reformatory was built in the year 1886 and was originally built with intentions of humanely rehabilitating first-time offenders. The reformatory was initially applauded for creating a positive step forward for prison reform. It was later in 1978 that the reformatory’s legacy was one of abuse, torture, and murder. It had been denounced for “brutalizing and inhuman conditions”. Violence among inmates was an everyday way of life. Tales have been told of inmates being sliced by shanks, beaten by soap bars and even thrown from six-story high walk ways. These tragic deaths were all trigged from petty grievances. It has been told that on one occasion after a riot; approximately one hundred and twenty inmates had been confined for several days in “the hole” with only twenty rooms to hold these prisoners. One room consisted of a toilet and a bunk and was not spacious by any means. During this time at least one inmate had been murdered and hidden in the corner of the room under bedding material for the several days to follow. The “sweat box” was a special type of torture used on African American inmates and Caucasian prisons escaped this punishment. Along with the murders of countless prisoners, a prison farmer and his family, the warder and his wife also had died at the Mansfield Reformatory. After ninety-four years of operation, 154,000 inmates had passed through its gates as a working prison. Eventually in the year 1990 the Mansfield Reformatory was shut down.…

    • 699 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Witch Hunt Research

    • 413 Words
    • 2 Pages

    put into jail and trial. Because of this jails were over crowded, conditions were unsanitary,…

    • 413 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the medieval period, guilty people were usually tortured and it was very cruel and embarrassing some of the ways guilty people were punished were:…

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In medieval times, punishment was often as brutal as the crimes. The executioners would do bad things to the sinners, such as a method called breaking with the wheel, the head crusher, or even the guillotine.…

    • 517 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In victorian britain punishments were very important but yet very cruel at the same time. Punishment is not something you would want to come acrossed because is you did something really terrible then (you would get hanged or sent off to another prison.)The punishment would be much worse than it was at their original prison.…

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Instead of going to jail for the rightful sentence, they are put into a mental hospital.…

    • 1040 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout the years, the death penalty has continued to be an ongoing controversial issue in the United States. While there are many supporters of the death penalty, there is also a great amount of objection. This type of punishment has been around since the eighteenth century in order to assist in a form of a consequence. It continues to be used to discipline those who break the laws and standards that are expected of them, by sentencing them to death. Ever since, it has become the highest level of punishment that can be handed down to someone in the criminal justice system; however, it has also raised many concerns. The process of getting off death…

    • 1025 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Taliban

    • 346 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Punishment was cutting off arms if accused of stealing, beatings, and public executions at sporting events.…

    • 346 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    California's Death Penalty

    • 1681 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Death Penalty Focus "Facts" Death Penalty Focus www.deathpenalty.org. November 30, 2004. December 15, 2004. Http://www.deathpenalty.org/index.php?pid=facts…

    • 1681 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The death penalty in the U.S. has been and continues to be a controversial debate between citizens. Debate regarding the policies, laws and if the death penalty is the best way to punish offenders who commit violent crimes. The history of the death penalty in the United States dates back to the late 1970s. Between 1968 and 1977 there were no executions in the United States. In the Supreme Court case of Furman v. Georgia, the court ruled that capital punishment, as it currently employed on the state and federal level is unconstitutional (Jones, 2006). The Eighth Amendment states that any form of capital punishment qualifies as “cruel and unusual punishment.” The use of executions during this time was primarily based on race and was considered by the Supreme Court as “arbitrary and capricious.”…

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    This article provides applicable information from many sources such as a Governors, Political Science Professors, the Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center as well as the President of the United States, providing legitimacy to the…

    • 2185 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays