how jails came to be in america :: essays research papers

The Long and Winding Road: How Jails Came to Be in America [The guards here believe that] the tougher, colder, and more cruel and inhuman a place is, the less chance a person will return. This is not true. The more negative experiences a person goes through, the more he turns into a violent, cruel, mean, heartless individual, I know this to be a fact – Annonymous Prisoner, â€Å"The Trauma of Prison Rape† (Manner 130) The prisoner described the truth of jails as he is experiencing them now, while the original Quaker intentions had something much different in mind. The Quakers, who were led under William Penn, were the first group to set up an institutionalized system in the United States that dealt with punishment. Since the original plans were developed for the prison system, the goal and intentions have been reformed time and time again. Although jails are supposed to be a place of rehabilitation, the reality is that they are actually a hotbed for spurring criminals more violent then when they were first admitted. Before jails were even implemented in America, the colonists had quite a different approach to punishment that led to how jails came to be. The original outlook of criminals came from the Colonists religious belief that criminals were sinners who were workers of the devil. The Colonists felt they had to be protected from devil’s workforce and therefore criminals must have their name run into the ground, be cast out of the town, or in the most extreme cases be hung. Before the Colonists accepted institutions, they looked to public humiliation as a means of correcting the lesser criminals. The harsher punishments, such as death, were given to people who were believed to be beyond redemption. But, with growing populations due to industrialization of cities townspeople grew less and less known to one another. With less recognition between citizens the thought of public humiliation as a punishment was weakening as a threat. On top of that, people were beginning to grow weary that c apital punishment may have been too barbaric and overall ineffective. Yet, the colonists were still not completely convinced to utilize jails. The hesitation was a result of the community feeling that most men were not salvageable and institutionalizing them would only be rewarding. Although, this conception began to unravel in the late 1600’s when the Pennsylvania Quakers came up with a plan that would eventually be accepted.