As we study history and things that have happened we always find that the first things that were thought of and used usually did not turn out to be the best, most of the time, and we still see that today in our society with different things that are invented.
As you study the history of Corrections you will always find where things were implemented and then were done away with or reworked because they just did not fit or work like they thought it would.We will see in the following paragraphs the penitentiary ideal of what they said it was and the two prison models that came into existence that were used for a number of years. When you think of penitentiary what comes to mind? You think of criminals acting like animals if they are crazy and the criminal serving his time in a hard way maybe even suffering. Well that is not what was on the minds of the ones that came up with the name penitentiary, it was supposed to have a purpose of being both secular and spiritual.Foster (2006) stated that “It was supposed to be a place of humane punishment as opposed to the physical punishments still prevalent in Western societies” (p. 22).
They were supposed to have a certain punishment. The penitentiary was supposed to be clean and a healthy place to live compared to the jails that were dirty and unclean spiritually. They felt that the criminals should be separate from each other with no contact with each other by keeping them all in isolation type cells.Now the ideals have changed and they are to help keep society safe from criminals and then try to help rehabilitate them before being released back into society. There were two prison models that came about which were the separate system or isolate system and the congregate system or silent system. The first model was created when the Eastern State Penitentiary was built which implemented the separate system or isolate system.
Foster (2006), stated that “The prison featured seven cell blocks radiating like spokes from a central rotunda” (p. 23).The prison looked like a Scottish castle from the Middle Ages that had thirty foot high walls enclosing it. Foster (2006), stated that “The design incorporated the principles of Quaker reformative imprisonment the complete isolation of inmates, fair treatment, and opportunity for work, reflection, and reformation” (p. 23).
This prison was big with an open atmosphere with wide halls and high walls. The cells were larger than a normal cell that was seven and a half by twelve. Foster (2006), stated that “These cells also had a skylight that represented the eye of God” (p.24).Each cell had their own exercise yard that was about the same size as the cell (Foster, 2006, p.
24). The prisoners never were allowed to see any other prisoner or any part of the prison. The prisoners worked in their cells and were also feed in their cells for all three meals. The ones that created this system felt like this was part of the prisoners’ time to reflect on their actions that brought them to that place and gain penance and to keep them from contaminating each other.The way the prison was ran is why they called it the separate system or isolate system.
The other model created was known as the congregate system or the silent system and was implemented when they built Auburn prison (Foster, 2006, p. 26). This place was called a prison not a penitentiary. The prisoners were housed in cells smaller than the ones at Eastern that were seven feet long and three and a half feet wide.
The cells were also organized differently by being stacked on top of each other in what they called tiers. The prisoners also had no outside exercise yards.The prisoners were divided into three levels of control from complete solitary to group work during the daytime (Foster, 2006, p. 24). Auburn experimented with solitary confinement for a year, several had died and most were sick (Foster, 2006, p.
25). After this experiment Auburn and other prisons rejected solitary confinement except as a punishment or for control (Foster, 2006, p. 26). The reason why they called this the silent system was because when the convicts were in contact with each other they were not allowed to speak to each other or they would be disciplined if caught breaking the rule.After seeing the success that this system had in Auburn they implemented it when they built Sing Sing prison. In the end the Auburn model was the winning model because there was three important reasons.
First, the aftermath of the Civil War brought a big increase in the prison population both as a result of the war and as a result of immigration and economic depression (Foster, 2006, p. 27). Second, isolation caused some prisoners to suffer psychologically, leading some to condemn solitary confinement as cruel and inhumane punishment (Foster, 2006, p. 27).
Finally, keeping a growing inmate population in solitary confinement was expensive (Foster, 2006, p. 27). In conclusion, I hope that you have learned along with me that the prison system has improved along with the penitentiary ideals that were formed when the citizens of America decided to start building prisons in this country. As stated before there are always some improvement to anything created and used at some point in its lifetime. After reading this I hope that you have gained some important information that you may have not known before about the prison system.
