Purpose and History Paper

John Eric Cabaluna

CJA/234

06/18/2014

Instructor: Robbyn-Nicole Livingston

“Corrections” is a term use to define the legal punishment of the criminals for the crimes they have committed. Before this term came, penology was used instead. Penology came from the word “penal” that was derived from the Latin term, “peonalis,” which means punishment. So, penology is simply the study of punishment. A philosopher named Francis Lieber was the first person who used the term penology.

There are five theories of punishment that were recognized: (1) retribution, (2) general deterrence, (3) specific deterrence, (4) incapacitation, and (5) rehabilitation. Retribution is the imposition of sentence given to someone who committed a crime. An example is a criminal committing a murder will be imposed to a death penalty. General deterrence is the concept “that the choice to commit delinquent acts can be controlled by the threat of punishment,” (Juvenile Delinquency: The Core, 2005). Because the society is aware that the punishment is given to an individual who commits a crime; therefore, the people avoid to committing such acts. An example of general deterrence is the mandatory minimum sentences for certain drug-related offenses, which is mostly informing the public via media of crimes, etc. Specific deterrence is the concept that “if young offenders are punished severely, the experience will convince them not to repeat their illegal acts,” (Juvenile Delinquency: The Core, 2005). The punishment imposed to a criminal that will give him or her experience that he or she will not want again in the future, thus, preventing he or she to commit future crimes. Incapacitation is the act of making the offender incapable of committing another crime. Examples of incapacitation are putting a criminal to correction sanctions as punishment of the crime he or she has committed, and the procedure of “chemical castration” for sex offenders to reduce their sex drive. Rehabilitation is restoring the offender back to his or her prior state before he or she committed a crime. An example is those previous drug addicts will go through rehabilitation of drug abuse.

Before 1700s, prison was not used as a serious form of punishment. However, many individuals were not satisfied with the extensive use of executions and other harsh punishments. So on late 1700s, the government started looking to prison as a reform of punishment.

The first prison in United States was the Walnut Street Jail, which was named after the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania street on which it was located. Instead of using the corporal punishment, the jail was used as a housing sentenced offenders. This jail served as a model for the designs of the first two prisons in the state of Pennsylvania: (1) the Western State Penitentiary in Pittsburg in 1826 and (2) the Eastern State Penitentiary in Cherry Hill just outside Philadelphia in 1829 (Corrections: An Introduction, 2011). The purpose of these two prisons was the same as the Walnut Street Jail that emphasized the chance of the prisoners to change themselves through hard work and doing penance for their offenses. The Pennsylvania System is known as the “separate and silent” system, with silence imposed and prisoners are not allowed to talk or see each other (Corrections: An Introduction, 2011). Although the approach of this system was to avoid criminal contamination by restricting inmates to communicate to each other, it was hard to implement such system. First, it was very hard to keep prisoners from seeing and communicated each other. Second, because there was only one inmate in one cell, more staffs were needed, which, of course, made it expensive to produce. Third, the production of goods by each inmate was not as much because they had to work alone in their own cells. Lastly, because of the less production of goods, it was then suggested to put at least two inmates in one cell to increase the production. Because of the several problems, the system was then abandoned, and improved system was built in Auburn, New York.

In 1817, New York opened a prison in Auburn that was originally designed after the Pennsylvania model. The Auburn system, known as the “congregate and silent” system, as officials continued to reduce the spread of criminal ideas by inmates through silence and strict discipline (Corrections: An Introduction, 2011). The approach of the system was inmates were allowed to work together, but they had to keep themselves silent and separate. They were not allowed to raise up their faces. Their eyes had to be looking down while they were walking and working.

The Auburn model had been used to operate and build several prisons during the first half of 1800s. After that until 1910, there had been two other systems implemented due to the increasing number of prisoners, and the need to build more prisons. The methods used replaced the emphasis of punishment, instead, preparing the offenders for reformation when they get out. They had education and programs to help them once they are out of prison. However, after 1910, there had been changes again to the prison system. Because of the increase numbers of prisoners, the prison labor had been emphasized again to economically self-support the prisons. Once again, production of goods had been back, and those goods were sold in the outside market. In 1935, the prisons had been restricted to selling their goods outside. This was the Period of Transition where idleness was enforced (Corrections: An Introduction, 2011). Many years following that, more systems were administered, and changes were made over time.

Over the past years, there had been many forms of punishments: from corrections to a death penalty to imprisonment. These punishments are made and created to penalize those people who commit crimes. Prison is used as an alternative of executions. Different systems were implemented as to how to use prisons, and the purpose of it. At the present time, these types of punishments and systems are still constrained.

References

Richard P. Seiter (2010). Corrections: An Introduction, Third Edtion.

Larry J. Siegel and Brandon C. Welch (2005). Juvenile Delinquency: The Core, Second Edition.

http://law-n-order.hubpages.com/hub/penology