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History of State and Federal Prisons
The State and Federal Prison Systems have a lot of similarities with a few differences. Both of these systems are unique in their own kind of way and have a rich history in the United Sates. The following paper will be a short discussion of the history of the state and federal prison systems.
The state prison systems of today were founded on the nineteenth-century penitentiary, which was based on the legal reforms of the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment. The penitentiary was based on legal reforms where scholars searched for a more humane and reform-oriented alternatives to death and other physical punishments that were all too common in that time. Principles of isolation, work, and compliant attitudes were implanted upon inmates in order to alter the nature of confinement. Maximum security was the norm for the early penitentiaries, which included high walls, guard towers, cell blocks stacked in tiers, and massive concrete and steel construction. Prisoners were controlled with isolation and high levels of intimidation and swift punishment if rules were broken. Security level that have been created over time to separate criminals by the type of crime they have committed and whenever or not they are a risk to themselves or others are maximum security, close-high security, medium security, minimum security, and open security prisons.
The federal Bureau of Prisons was created in 1930 by an act of Congress signed into law by President Hoover. What about federal prisons and federal inmates before this? Before the act was signed into law there were federal prisons but no central office. The first federal prison was opened in the 1890’s but before that federal convicts severed there time in state and local institutions. There weren’t many federal crimes or federal criminals back then until after the Civil War. Prisons and

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