Chapter 4

 Housing the Dangerous Classes 

Economy & Punishment 

•         Rusche & Kirchheimer’s thesis on the connection between dominant economic forms and punishment

•         Early Middle Ages penance and fines were dominant

•         Later Middle Ages a harsh system of corporal and capital punishment prevailed

•         Late 18th and early 19th centuries imprisonment became the dominant form

 Historical Periods of Imprisonment in America 

·        1790–1830: early American prisons

·         1830–1870: the Pennsylvania and Auburn systems

·         1870–1900: reformatories

·         1900–1946: the “Big House”

·         1946–1980: the “correctional institution”

·         Since 1980: “warehousing 

Colonial Punishments 

•         In a word, they were public and often physical

–        Stocks, pillory, whippings, branding, etc.

•         No prisons, although most towns had jails, but these jails resembled regular houses

•         Primary method of social control was informal

–        Local families, the community, and the church providing most forms of punishment.

•         After the revolution the old Walnut Street Jail was converted to the first state prison

–        First time for any kind of long term incarceration

–        Part of a larger attempt to maintain “order” in the new, highly stratified society

 Penal Discipline 

•         Rather than merely physical punishment imposed upon the body, we find a form of discipline aimed at the mind.

–        Daily rituals and routines

–        Inculcation of various attitudes and values (“Protestant ethic”)

–        Hard labor and solitary confinement.

•         This arose simultaneously with the emergence of almost identical forms of discipline in the newly emerging factory system

 Trafficking, Slavery & Prisons  

•         prisoners and slaves – terms often used simultaneously

–        descriptions of Spanish and French slave trades often used the terms “slave” and “prisoner” interchangeably

•         Both convicts and slaves shipped to American colonies to work

–        This is how the early fortunes were made

•         “Eventually plantation owners found that they could save even more money by using black slaves, since they could keep them for life”

•         Children were seized (often called “napping”) for shipment to American colonies to be servants.

–        This practice became so common that the term “kidnapping” was often used

•         American colonial history is mostly a “story of the immigration of prisoners.” 

–        Prisoners “manned the ships” and “were carried to the colonies to work in the mines and fields”

–        “brought in chains from African and Europe to the Caribbean and the Americas as slaves”

•         Parliament passed an act to assist new businesses in the colonies

–        allowed courts to sentence offenders to “transportation” to the colonies instead of to the gallows

–        Thousands of offenders shipped to America to be “servants” for a period of usually 7 years.

•         Between 1720 and 1765 Parliament passed 16 laws making transportation the required form of punishment for a wide variety of mostly minor crimes, such as poaching and perjury

–        16,000 sent to the new colony of Georgia

–        ¼ of all immigrants to American colonies were convicted criminals – this only includes those from England, as many came from France, Spain and Denmark 

Prisoners, slaves & profits 

•         Like African slaves, prisoners were often viewed as “human cargoes” and mere “commodities.” 

•         Advertisements were posted throughout the colonies noting the planned arrival of a particular “convict vessel,” in a manner almost identical to the arrival of African slaves.

 Forerunners of the Modern Prison  

•         Saint Michael Boys Home – 1704 (Rome)

Workhouses and Poorhouses 

•         First known workhouse was in Amsterdam in 1596 – the Rasphaus

·        Intent was to discipline the inmates into accepting a regimen like a factory   

·        Workhouse on Blackwell’s Island, New York City (c. 1852)

 •         Penal workhouse, Ghent, Belgium, 1773

 Panopticon Prison Design 

•         Jeremy Bentham derived the idea from the plan of a factory designed for easy supervision, itself conceived by his brother Samuel who arrived to it as a solution to the complexities involved in the handling of large numbers of men

•         Bentham’s Panopticon Prison Design.

–        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

Panopticon, the Factory, schools, etc. 

•         Prisons and other hierarchical structures (army, school, hospital and factory) have evolved through history to resemble the Bentham's Panopticon.

•         This technology and philosophy could be expanded to society as a whole.

–        Many areas have closed-circuit TV surveillance (stoplights and in downtown areas) used to reduce the risk of crime.

–        In totalitarian societies, Panopticon systems could lead to oppressive Orwellian conditions.

 Walnut St. Jail 

 Pennsylvania and Auburn Systems   

•         Belief that criminals lacked respect for authority and proper work habits led to the adoption of the Auburn system

–        Hard labor was the cure.

•         Belief that criminals were “sinners” and needed to “repent” for their crimes led to the adoption of the Pennsylvania system

–        Solitary confinement with the Bible was the cure

 Penance 

•         Originated in the medieval monasteries of Europe for monks who had sinned or committed crimes (hence the term penitentiary).

•         Penance could be accomplished only through the use of solitary confinement and no contact with other prisoners or with the outside world.

 Pennsylvania plan  

•         Each cell had an outside exercise yard, each was allowed short periods in this yard for daily exercise but spent most of the time inside the cell working at some menial task or individual craft.

•         Each prisoner was blindfolded upon entering the prison to begin his sentence and was prohibited from contact with other prisoners.

 Auburn plan 

•         Emphasized work in association with other prisoners

•         Began in New York

–        supported by business class

•         “Congregate” system – prisoners were allowed to congregate in work groups

•         Similar to a factory – important idea

•         Silent system prevailed

–        Gave rise to a “prison subculture” because of the need to communicate with others

 Eastern State Penitentiary 

•         Like spokes on a wheel http://www.easternstate.org/album/arch/set1/index.html

Auburn Prison 

The Reformatory, 1870–1900 

•         Prisoners should be rehabilitated

•         Origins in the system designed by Alexander Maconochie, who headed the penal colony on Norfolk Island in Australia in the 1830s.

–        Introduced the “mark system” where an offender can get time reduced for good behavior– today called “good time”

•         Walter Crofton introduced the Irish system in Ireland’s prisons (1850s) which used indeterminate sentences and the ticket-of-leave which became known as parole. 

The Fate of the Reformatory 

•         Elmira Reformatory was supposed to be the best of all possible worlds, but instead became a “garrison fortress” of brutality

•         Failed to live up to the promise of reforming criminals

•         One historian stated that “The whole system of discipline was repressive, and varied from benevolent despotism, in the best instances, to tyrannical cruelty in the worst.”

•         Custody v. treatment constant conflict

–        Custody usually wins

 Why did the “Auburn Plan” become dominant? 

•         In a word: profits.

•         State use, contract and convict leasing all took advantage of prison labor

•         Convict leasing was the most notorious, occurring all over the south, filling prisons with mostly black prisoners, often sent up on minor or trumped up charges

•         The plan fit in nicely with the emerging capitalist economy, since there was always a need for cheap labor, no matter where it was found

 The “Big House,” 1900–1946 

•         Huge granite structure capable of housing two thousand or more prisoners, with some housing more than four thousand

•         Jackson (Michigan), San Quentin (California), Joliet (Illinois), Sing Sing (New York), Stateville (Illinois) and Attica (New York), Carson City, etc.

 Jackson State Prison

 Tennessee State Prison

The Rock!!

The Modern Era  

•         As of June, 2006 there were 2.3 million in prison and jail

•         incarceration rate of 750, highest in world

•         Rate for black males was 4789 compared to 736 for white males

–        Jail incarceration rate was 815 for blacks and 170 for whites

 The US vs. the World 

•         Avg. incarceration rate in the rest of world is about 80

•         Canada has a rate of 129 and is similar to US in almost every respect except:

–        Much greater social “safety net” including national single-payer health ins.

•         Sentences in US greater than anywhere else except for some Third World dictatorships

 Huge increases in other parts of CJ system 

•         As noted in Table 4-6 all components of the system have experienced huge increases

•         Recent increases stem from drugs convictions and parole violations (mostly from “technical violations” like failing drug tests and failure to pay parole fees)

–        Parole violators sent to prison up 14% between 2000 and 2005

 The American Gulag  

•         Prisons spread out all over the country, especially in small rural areas

•         Some rural areas have been begging for prisons as a form of economic recovery

•         Some areas have several prisons and more prisoners than citizens

•         Often counted in census resulting in tax dollars going there instead of where prisoners are from

 Texas

Michigan