Preview

Prison Reform In The 19th Century

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
416 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Prison Reform In The 19th Century
Prison Reform in the 19th Century
So, every time I re-read a source or try to write, I keep thinking back to what I am actually trying to argue. I've finally figured out my argument: Hawthorne portrayed Hollingsworth as a failure because he did not believe in the prison reform efforts of the time. I came to this through looking at a lot of parallels in my sources, and finding different reasons for why my hypothesis is true.

The two types of prison reform in the early 1800s were meant to reform criminals through very strict methods. They were so strict that prisoners were not allowed to communicate at all. I think that the strictness of these systems was too harsh for many people. Also, these systems died out quickly because people started

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Throughout the centuries, both the system and the concept of prison have undergone many radical changes that eventually led to the formation of the prison as we know it now. In the 16th and 17th centuries, prison tended to be a place where criminals were kept in it while awaiting their punishment. It was a place, where criminals were held, rather than a means of punishment. In fact, criminals, at that time, were publically punished, rather than imprisoned, in the most torturous ways such as whipping, and slaughtering. However, in the 18th century, people in charge decided to put an end to these cruel methods of punishing. They came up with new methods of punishing instead of using torture in punishing criminals. In fact, the incarceration with hard labor was the new method of punishing criminals. Thus, the prison itself became a tool of punishment.…

    • 625 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Corrections Rough Draft 2

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages

    This system stayed in place throughout prisons for a very long time, because it gave the inmates something to do but it also gave them a reason to stay alive, because if they did not work, they didn’t get any food and they wound up dying shortly thereafter. The 19th century saw a much more organized type of prison system, a lot more inmates were kept in the same facility and new buildings were being built all the time to serve as more prisons and penitentiaries. The first national penitentiary was built in Millbank in London, in 1816. It held 860 prisoners, kept in separate cells. Work in this prison was mainly centered on simple tasks such as picking 'coir ' (tarred rope) and weaving. The work was a lot less harsh but there were still a lot of work for the inmates to accomplish and if they did it well enough they might even get there sentence shortened, and it would also make their stay in the prison a whole lot easier.…

    • 832 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    History of Criminal Justice

    • 6235 Words
    • 25 Pages

    Though a prison, Le Stinche, existed as early as the 14th century in Italy, incarceration was not widely used until the 19th century. Correctional reform in the United States was first initiated by William Penn, towards the end of the 17th century. For a time, Pennsylvania's criminal code was revised to forbid torture and other forms of cruel punishment, with jails and prisons replacing corporal punishment. These reforms were reverted, upon Penn's death in 1718. Under pressure from a group of Quakers, these reforms were revived in Pennsylvania toward the end of the 18th century, and led to a marked drop in Pennsylvania's crime rate. Patrick Colquhoun, Henry Fielding and others led significant reforms during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.[19]…

    • 6235 Words
    • 25 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In Europe, institutional confinement did not become a major punishment for criminals until the 1600s and 1700s. (In the United States, institutional confinement was not used extensively as a punishment until the 1800s.) As a practice, though institutional confinement has existed since ancient times. Before the 1600s, however, it usually served functions other than punishment for criminal behavior. For example, confinement was used to:…

    • 238 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    I believe that health care and safety are two significant changes that have occurred during the 20th century. We now have more advanced technology and more income coming into the prisons to provide efficient care for the inmate’s health issues or accidents that may occur within the facilities. Before the 20th century the death rate of inmates was extremely high, due to the fact of overcrowding and not having the means and resources to efficiently take care of any diseases, illnesses and wounds that passed through.…

    • 322 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the book, A place to Stand, by Jimmy Santiago Baca, Baca writes about prison and how being incarcerated can have impact on a person and their family. With the most beautiful, strong and poetic language, Baca tells us the story of all the people who faces difficult times in order to find their place in the world. Baca always felt like he had no place to stand in society because, all of his life he was put down by his family and friends. From the age of five Baca experienced his dad and uncles going in and out of jail from being addicted to alcohol. Baca knew he would eventually end up in jail sooner or later because that’s what he had experienced all of his life. Baca writes, “Whether I was approaching it or seeking escape from it, jail always defined in some way the measure of my life” (3). Baca felt that his life would always head in the wrong direction because of his family issues. Baca shows being in prison can cause a lot of emotional impact on a person’s life, as well as affect the community.…

    • 1505 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The most dramatic developments in the Criminal Justice system during the late 20th Century were the revolution of the sentencing system. Prior to the sentencing reforms of 1984, most of the 20th century federal sentencing was largely based on rehabilitative model where sentencing was indeterminate. By the 1970s, the traditional sentencing system came under increasing attack as public interest in the criminal justice system prompted “crime research boom time” (Nagel, 1990; Wilkins, 1987). The concerns manifested to a policy reform focusing on retribution, deterrence and incapacitation as means of getting tough on crime and.…

    • 354 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In Prison Writings in 20th Century, Franklin illuminates a positive correlation between poverty and incarceration after the 1929 stock market crash. Over a roughly ten-year period, the Great Depression elucidates an intersection of poverty and “criminality,” where impoverished conditions created behavioral responses that American society has criminalized. In addition, the crash created a profusion of cheap labor and therefore decreased the demand for prison labor. In 2008, the Great Recession destroyed countless people’s wealth, employment, and hope. The increase in poverty created by the recession should, according to the 1929 crash, also have a corresponding increase in incarceration and decrease in the use of prison labor. Yet incarceration…

    • 150 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Society’s legal system before the 1700s was very different from what it is today, and punishment has made a huge turn around that is almost unbelievable to study. Criminals have gone from cruel and harsh punishment to obtaining on bail or just pay a fine for their crimes. In modern times, society is use to see criminals paying for their crimes in prison doing two years, 10 years, and sometimes life. The Prison system is very modern compare to the old punishment criminals use to obtain. Physical punishment was use back in history as well as corporal punishment and capital punishment. Laws have change within time creating too many rights for the criminal and giving light punishment. Punishment and the correction system make drastic changes every century, and the understandings of both are complicated do to their changes. A part of society wants harsh punishment to comeback and the other big part are not agreeing with incarceration it all.…

    • 721 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This memorandum serves as a proposal and examination about a significant issue; that has influenced the United States prison system. Because criminal activities are at an incomparable high, an expansion inside the prison population has incurred, resulting in a financial burden within the system. According to a review directed by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), they anticipated by 2018, overcrowding would move to over 45% over the BOP's maximum capacity. In addition, the prison cannot keep up such influx making a consequential problem for prison guards and inmates. As communicated by James, the quantity of the detainees housed in state and government correctional facilities climbed faster than facility capacity expanded. The…

    • 611 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    If a criminal is committed of tax fraud then they will most likely end up in a federal prison. Federal Prisons are run by the national government and primarily house those known as “white-collar criminals”. A while-collar criminal is a person who commits what is known as a white-collar crime such as Income tax evasion. The term white-collar criminal is related to the term “white-collar worker”, who are mostly those who receive higher wages and are part of the upper-middle class to the higher class range.…

    • 269 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    Would you believe me if I told you that prisons were originally built to reform prisoners? With they way the criminal justice system works and how high the rates of mass incarceration are, in today's day and age, I, myself, would not believe that prisons were built with a positive outcome in mind. If someone would have told me that in the eighteen hundreds prison were used as a place to reform individuals, I would have given them a nasty looking face full of disbelief. But now that I have this information, the question is, what changed? Why is this method still not being practiced in today’s society? However, while asking these question, I realize that it is absolutely amazing the way things change and how easily things are tainted.…

    • 1430 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this essay I will be looking at the key developments of the British penal system since the early nineteenth century. I will also discuss how the main objectives of the prison system have changed over this period of time.…

    • 1244 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Learn to recognize the influence of socially sanctioned hatred. What I mean by socially sanctioned hatred is simple: We human beings seem to have a built-in temptation to objectify other groups of people in order to feel superior to them or to find a scapegoat for all our problems. It's reflected in language, in words like "nigger," "Faggot," "slant-eyes," "gook," and so on. Certainly, among most of us, that kind of prejudicial speech is not acceptable. And yet, among decent people, from liberal to conservative, it is still socially acceptable to call criminals "scum," "sleaze bags," or "animals." We hear that one demented soul kidnapped and killed a little girl, and a few weeks later, when a teenager steals our car radio, we are ready to strap the two of them together in the gas chamber. "I'm sick of these animals," we say. "They're all alike. Let them…

    • 862 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    History of Corrections

    • 1751 Words
    • 8 Pages

    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.…

    • 1751 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays