Corrections Purpose and History Essay

The history of punishment is a unique one, since the chatter of man human kind has punished one a nonher. Man did non merely throw close toone in a chamber and permit them contemplate their crimes such as we do in todays baseball club rather, during those early magazines, punishment was harsh and swift. Criminals were non drawn by means of the litigation processes instead, they were found immediately guilty of a crime and brought onward to be punished in an open forum, serving to the masses as an example of the consequences of crime. The early forms of punishment in Europe varied greatly but all forms were meant to inflict unimaginable pain upon the recipient, and it is from the European methods of immurement from which the U.S. drew inspiration. penalty such as crucifixion, burning on pyres, guillotines, and gauntlets ar but a few examples of what methods were utilized as early methods of punishment in early Europe. This illustrates the underlying ideology that punishment should be administered with cardinal principles in mind, deterrence and retribution.Purpose and HistoryMethods of poundage introduced near the unblock of the eighteenth century England inspired and revolutionized the way we punish and house inmates. In England during the fifteenth and sixteenth centurys corporal punishment reined supreme. general beatings were carried out in the streets with whips beheadings and torture were the norm for serious crimes and enslavement was greenness for petty offenders. During the seventeenth century in England and other European countries, impoundment for lesser offenses started to occur but conditions were less than desirable or humane. These facilities were overcrowded, unsanitary, and, overcome of all, gender/age neutral, which meant that male felons frequently took liberties with incarcerated women and children (Incarcerated The History of the Penitentiary from 1776-Present, 1997). The American Colonies quickly embraced the idea of impri son housement, because of the religious freedoms English settlers sought when they colonized this nation.The Quakers were a religious group that settled in the northeast United States and they unquestionable new laws to govern punishment and incarcerations that foc utilise on prolonged imprisonment to serve as retribution for crimes hopeted. The Quakers belief transcription focuse on of morality, peace, non-violence, and humanity. As such they showed mercy on offenders by allowing them to shed their anti-social behaviors by dint of long term incarceration and a penance of hard labor. It is from this that modernistic the concept of reformation was established. Since this form of incarceration gained popularity, it has held onto two core principles that a criminal can make restitutions for his/her crimes and that a convict can be eventually reintegrated back into society. The new form of punishment provided an alternative to the use punishments of yesteryear.Auburn versus Cherry Hill Pennsylvania SystemThis reformation of how society punished criminals served as the foundation for new and competing theories on incarceration and punishment. In America around the early 1800s, two prison systems were the dominant models of labour the Pennsylvania and the Auburn State. The first model was the Pennsylvania model, which was first used at Cherry Hill prison. This model used solitary task as its primary tool convicts were invariablely detained without interactions with other individuals or time outside of confinement. The idea was that solitary confinement would lead to inward check and religious motivation and result in a penitent convict. In fact the word penitentiary actually comes from the Pennsylvania model of perpetual confinement because it had religious implications. At first, particularly in Cherry Hill, a Bible would be left in the solitary confinement cells in the hopes it would help prisoners repent. The second model was the Auburn State prison sys tem, which support the labor penance model. It operated under the assumption that hard, physical labor could not only serve as restitution but as a means of helping a convicted criminal reintegrate into society richly reformed. Often, prisoners worked during the day in total silence and would be hosed down them at night.A primary(prenominal) criticism of the Auburn system was that prisoners were being used essentially as slave labor. Inmates were being farmed out to private pargonntage owners, who had contracts with the nominate, which in turn lined the pockets of the private businesses and cut costs for the state. As such, the Auburn model became the popular model, because states faced significantly less prison and prisoner c ar costs. Businesses paid a fee in rove to use the prisoners and the prisoners acted as unpaid labor for the businesses. The state prisons pocketed the fees thus creating a revenue stream that could be used to support the prisons, rather than tapping into state funds, i.e. evaluate payer dollars (Colvin, 1997). Around the 1920s to 1930s many changes occurred due to the state of the economy and activists pressing the government for prison reform. One of the main changes occurred when Congress enacted the Hawes Cooper Act, which effectively stymied the sale of prison-made well(p)s or the use of prison-labor by devising such goods subject to state punitive laws.This act was worked in no small part due to the jobs that were needed by good upstanding citizensjobs that were being taken away during extremely tough monetary times by cheap prison labor. Congress had the authority to pass such a law thanks to its power to control and tax interstate commerce. The Ashurst-Sumners Act was the final nail in the coffin by prohibiting transport companies from accepting prison-made products (McShane & Williams,1996). The changes that stemmed from the Depression helped shape the correctional system into the renewal-oriented program we have toda y. Prisoners be now classified into the likelihood of rehabilitation and the type of crimes that were committed, and this determines what type of facility an offender is incarcerated. Since 1935, the government made it pass off that prisons must separate prisoners on the basis of gender and age. Now, facilities specifically for upstart offenders have been established and the handling procedures for younger offenders have been defined.Furthermore, there are programs to rehabilitate all types of offenders whether their needs are as simple as talking to someone during counseling sessions or educational opportunities. In some ways this system has been detrimental to corrections as a intact because it arguably results in overcrowding and a more lenient attitude if you commit a crime then you will only have to hump with years off your life rather than hard labor and making reparations for the crime (Seiter, 2011). Over-population has resulted in more money taken from the taxpayers be cause if there are more people in the correctional system, more facilities and care are needed. Crime levels have dissipated over the years but not dramatically enough to really prove that this system is the true base to our problems.ConclusionModern principles of rehabilitation and reform have brought about the creation of facilities to incarcerate convicted individuals these structures are called penitentiaries, jails, and prisons. Current prisons are more aptly implicated with long-term detention rather than a temporary housing introductory to punishment like it was used as in the past. Todays Prisons are a shell of the former institutions. Inmates in facilities today would never allow themselves to be used for labor outside prison walls it would be considered cruel and unusual punishment. For now the correctional system work, but soon it could be on the verge of collapse and any moment the outflow gates could burst and the concept of rehabilitation could come to an end.Ref erencesMcshane, M. D., & Williams, F. P. (1996). Encyclopedia of American Prisons (2nd ed.). Taylor and Francis. INCARCERATED THE HISTORY OF THE PENITENTIARY FROM 1776-PRESENT. (1997). Retrieved from http//www.richeast.org/htwm/jails/Jails.html Colvin, M. (1997). Penitentiaries, Reformatories, and Chain Gangs Social Theory and the History of Punishment in Nineteenth Century America. St. Martins Press. Seiter, R. (2011). Corrections an Introduction (3rd ed.). upper berth saddle Hall, NJ Pearson/Prentice Hall.