Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Jails and Prisons - Treatment or Incarceration
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, an estimated 61,000 (16%) of convicted jail inmates committed their offense to get money for drugs. Two-thirds of convicted inmates were actively involved with drugs prior to their admission to jail. Texas completed an exhaustive study of its felony sentencing patterns and found that the most frequent crime resulting in a prison sentence was drug possession (22%), followed by burglary (20%), theft and fraud (20%), and drug delivery (15%).
The days of rehabilitating criminals have long since vanished in a whirlwind of impatience and cynicism. For a brief time, people were enthusiastic about treatment and its possibilities, but that attitude was quickly replaced by an attitude of "just desserts." Poor research and quick fix attitudes scrapped many of the earlier attempts the criminal justice system tried at rehabilitation. People were not impressed with the results of rehabilitation, specifically for drug offenders, and so many programs were cut off from funding and collapsed.
Today, because of the overcrowding problem, many cities are being forced to look at treatment as a viable alternative to imprisonment. Laws have been passed that are designed to foster an increase in the use of alternatives for incarceration. The most notable of these efforts is Proposition 36 in California. Having worked in the recovery field for over five years, I have had first hand experience in helping develop programs that satisfy the court's requirements for alternative sentencing and that fit Proposition 36 guidelines. Unfortunately, I have also been able to see how Proposition 36 was doomed from the start.
In the year 2000, an overwhelming number of people, over sixty percent, voted for The Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act in California, commonly known as Proposition 36. The passage of this law represented a major shift in penology, from incarceration to rehabilitation. Not since the Progressive Movement of the early 1900's and the original Quaker penology before that, has rehabilitation been part of the penal system.
Proposition 36 allows non-violent drug offenders to be placed on probation and into drug treatment. The person who is granted entrance into the Proposition 36 program is required to participate in treatment on a daily basis at a designated facility, submit to random drug tests, and participate in outside recovery meetings. Unlike the prisoner who is confined bodily to his cell in prison, the same criminal can now be granted a soft mattress at a recovery facility somewhere in California, and be given at least the illusion of greater freedom.
Unfortunately, Proposition 36 is poorly funded and understaffed. Furthermore, the kind of treatment that Proposition 36 offers (people who qualify for Prop 36 are sent to a treatment center that meets the program's standards) is poor and halfhearted. The treatment is poor because Prop 36 will only pay $1200 per month for treatment and most quality inpatient facilities cost at least $4000 a month. Nancy Clarks is the most notable Prop 36 treatment facility in Orange County, California. The facility offers different levels of monitoring and treatment, but the basic program remains the same for everyone and the program does not offer the intensive treatment that many of the drug offenders need.
Opening up treatment centers that cater to Prop 36 is almost as difficult as opening a new jail or prison in an area. Neighbors object and law abiding citizens cry out in fear. The biggest problem lately with Prop 36 treatment facilities is the people who are admitted to them. One lawyer in Orange County commented that the biggest problem they are having with Prop 36 facilities is the property crime that takes place as a result of clients who relapse.
Treatment programs have sprung up in many states other than California. In Quincy, Massachusetts, first-and second-time DWI offenders may be placed on probation as an alternative to jail and ordered to a certified drunk driving treatment program. In this 26-week program, offenders are required to attend weekly group counseling sessions and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
"Some jurisdictions are actually reducing their prison terms and funding alternatives to prison". Jails are beginning to open their own treatment programs within their walls. The Boulder, Colorado jail has created a Drug/Alcohol Evaluation Unit that evaluates offenders convicted of alcohol-or-drug-related driving offenses for level of alcohol or drug dependence and petty misdemeanor drug offenses.
This program boasts high success rates, but one thing that treatment facilities, judges, and public defenders have realized since the last rehabilitation surge in the criminal justice system, is that politicians and the people like high success rates and they will coax research statistics to reflect a successful image. There is undeniably a high recidivism rate for drug addicts and alcoholics, but the most effective treatment is one that accepts this fact of addiction and works with it instead of against it. For many drug addicts and alcoholics, relapse is a part of rehabilitation and it takes patient and perseverant case workers, judges, and politicians to understand this simple truth.
Rehabilitation has begun to make a faint reappearance, but only in so far as it is a solution to overcrowding. With Proposition 36 and alternative sentencing, courts can siphon a steady stream of nonviolent offenders from the jails and put them into rehabilitation programs. Nancy Clarks in Orange County is one of the more frequently used alternative sentencing facilities for nonviolent drug offenders. Nancy Clark offers a variety of monitoring devices, levels of confinement, and in and out patient options for judges to utilize.
Orange County has another option available to non-violent drug offenders called Drug Court. Drug Court is another one of the more innovative efforts towards rehabilitation. Judge David McEachen was the first judge to reside over the new felony drug court in March 1995 and in 2000 they had 189 participants and 50 successful graduates.
Drug Court was designed with more of a rehabilitative spirit in mind, and ironically, or perhaps predictably, according to the current president of the Orange County chapter of the National Counsel on Drugs and Alcohol (NSDA), Grant McNiff, the program is in danger of collapsing for lack of funds despite its success. "Many have finally begun to openly question the wisdom of lengthy mandatory prison terms for drug users. The huge costs of the imprisonment binge have led states to reconsider prison construction programs".
The days of rehabilitating criminals have long since vanished in a whirlwind of impatience and cynicism. For a brief time, people were enthusiastic about treatment and its possibilities, but that attitude was quickly replaced by an attitude of "just desserts." Poor research and quick fix attitudes scrapped many of the earlier attempts the criminal justice system tried at rehabilitation. People were not impressed with the results of rehabilitation, specifically for drug offenders, and so many programs were cut off from funding and collapsed.
Today, because of the overcrowding problem, many cities are being forced to look at treatment as a viable alternative to imprisonment. Laws have been passed that are designed to foster an increase in the use of alternatives for incarceration. The most notable of these efforts is Proposition 36 in California. Having worked in the recovery field for over five years, I have had first hand experience in helping develop programs that satisfy the court's requirements for alternative sentencing and that fit Proposition 36 guidelines. Unfortunately, I have also been able to see how Proposition 36 was doomed from the start.
In the year 2000, an overwhelming number of people, over sixty percent, voted for The Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act in California, commonly known as Proposition 36. The passage of this law represented a major shift in penology, from incarceration to rehabilitation. Not since the Progressive Movement of the early 1900's and the original Quaker penology before that, has rehabilitation been part of the penal system.
Proposition 36 allows non-violent drug offenders to be placed on probation and into drug treatment. The person who is granted entrance into the Proposition 36 program is required to participate in treatment on a daily basis at a designated facility, submit to random drug tests, and participate in outside recovery meetings. Unlike the prisoner who is confined bodily to his cell in prison, the same criminal can now be granted a soft mattress at a recovery facility somewhere in California, and be given at least the illusion of greater freedom.
Unfortunately, Proposition 36 is poorly funded and understaffed. Furthermore, the kind of treatment that Proposition 36 offers (people who qualify for Prop 36 are sent to a treatment center that meets the program's standards) is poor and halfhearted. The treatment is poor because Prop 36 will only pay $1200 per month for treatment and most quality inpatient facilities cost at least $4000 a month. Nancy Clarks is the most notable Prop 36 treatment facility in Orange County, California. The facility offers different levels of monitoring and treatment, but the basic program remains the same for everyone and the program does not offer the intensive treatment that many of the drug offenders need.
Opening up treatment centers that cater to Prop 36 is almost as difficult as opening a new jail or prison in an area. Neighbors object and law abiding citizens cry out in fear. The biggest problem lately with Prop 36 treatment facilities is the people who are admitted to them. One lawyer in Orange County commented that the biggest problem they are having with Prop 36 facilities is the property crime that takes place as a result of clients who relapse.
Treatment programs have sprung up in many states other than California. In Quincy, Massachusetts, first-and second-time DWI offenders may be placed on probation as an alternative to jail and ordered to a certified drunk driving treatment program. In this 26-week program, offenders are required to attend weekly group counseling sessions and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
"Some jurisdictions are actually reducing their prison terms and funding alternatives to prison". Jails are beginning to open their own treatment programs within their walls. The Boulder, Colorado jail has created a Drug/Alcohol Evaluation Unit that evaluates offenders convicted of alcohol-or-drug-related driving offenses for level of alcohol or drug dependence and petty misdemeanor drug offenses.
This program boasts high success rates, but one thing that treatment facilities, judges, and public defenders have realized since the last rehabilitation surge in the criminal justice system, is that politicians and the people like high success rates and they will coax research statistics to reflect a successful image. There is undeniably a high recidivism rate for drug addicts and alcoholics, but the most effective treatment is one that accepts this fact of addiction and works with it instead of against it. For many drug addicts and alcoholics, relapse is a part of rehabilitation and it takes patient and perseverant case workers, judges, and politicians to understand this simple truth.
Rehabilitation has begun to make a faint reappearance, but only in so far as it is a solution to overcrowding. With Proposition 36 and alternative sentencing, courts can siphon a steady stream of nonviolent offenders from the jails and put them into rehabilitation programs. Nancy Clarks in Orange County is one of the more frequently used alternative sentencing facilities for nonviolent drug offenders. Nancy Clark offers a variety of monitoring devices, levels of confinement, and in and out patient options for judges to utilize.
Orange County has another option available to non-violent drug offenders called Drug Court. Drug Court is another one of the more innovative efforts towards rehabilitation. Judge David McEachen was the first judge to reside over the new felony drug court in March 1995 and in 2000 they had 189 participants and 50 successful graduates.
Drug Court was designed with more of a rehabilitative spirit in mind, and ironically, or perhaps predictably, according to the current president of the Orange County chapter of the National Counsel on Drugs and Alcohol (NSDA), Grant McNiff, the program is in danger of collapsing for lack of funds despite its success. "Many have finally begun to openly question the wisdom of lengthy mandatory prison terms for drug users. The huge costs of the imprisonment binge have led states to reconsider prison construction programs".
Labels: incarceration, jail, prison
Monday, December 31, 2007
Jails and Prisons - Privatization
In 1995 America was spending approximately $112 billion each year to operate the nation's entire criminal justice system; in 1985 it was $40 billion and in 1982 it was $9.1 billion. There is more money spent on prisons and jails than on education in some areas of the country. In New York, the Correctional Association reported that between 1988 and 1998 it spent $761.3 million on corrections, while during the same time period, New York's spending on state and city colleges dropped by $615 million. The Rand Corporation estimates that for every $1 million spent incarcerating repeat offenders in California, it prevented only sixty-one serious crimes, whereas the same amount spent on high school graduation incentives prevented 258 serious crimes. One of the solutions many states have fallen back on in an effort to save money is private prisons.
Privatization refers to the transfer of traditional responsibilities from the public sector to the private sector. Privatization is not an original evil, "historically, all prisons were private endeavors which gradually came under the control of government", but the current trend towards privatization is motivated by slightly different goals than it was historically. Privatization today is both a new capitalistic opportunity for the wealthy and a solution to overcrowding in jails and prisons. Three trends in the criminal justice arena converged in the 1980's to create the prison industrial complex: The ideological imperatives of the free market; the huge increase in the number of prisoners: and the concomitant increase in imprisonment costs. In some cases, government will consider privatization in an effort to reduce the overall cost of corrections, but since the genesis of the private prison in this current criminal justice era, research has been conducted that fails to support the idea that private prisons will save money.
Privately operated prison facilities held 86,626 inmates and the largest drop was among inmates was in the state of Texas. Proponents of privatization argue that accountability will be increased by privatization, whereas opponents argue that the result will be that private contracting agencies will actually be insulated from public scrutiny. Opponents argue that private prisons might selfishly reduce costs at the expense of the inmate's rehabilitation and living conditions. Both have good arguments, but there needs to be more research done on the quality of care within private prisons.
Prisons all across America are "Cashing in on tight labor markets and public disenchantment with rehabilitation programs". Wall Street is cashing in on crime by urging investors to invest in the major corporations involved in the private prison business such as Corrections Corporation of America and Wackenhut Corrections. For-profit businesses are also making money off of labor within prison walls. In many prisons, prisoners are leased out to companies for minimum wage work and some state laws are being passed to encourage and even require prisons to become involved in profit making enterprises. In Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution, a law called Measure 17, passed in 1994, requires that work programs within prisons be run "to achieve a net profit". This is good for the companies that participate in programs like these across America, because it can cut a corporation's payroll costs by 35 percent.
The privatization of the prison industry concerns many who are worried about crime generating profits for big businesses. Their doubts are not entirely unrealistic, but the prison-industrial complex is not the real concern. To assume that companies could, or would desire more prisoners behind bars because it means more profits for them is paranoid. As an article in the Atlantic Monthly by Eric Schlosser titled "The Prison-Industrial Complex" points out: The prison-industrial complex is not a conspiracy.It is a confluence of interests that has given prison construction in the United States a seemingly unstoppable momentum. It is composed of politicians, who have used the fear of crime to gain votes; impoverished rural areas where prisons have become a cornerstone of economic development; and private companies that regard the roughly $35,000,000,000.00 billion spent each year on corrections not as a burden on American taxpayers but as a lucrative market.
One outspoken critic of the private prison industry Phil Smith has said that, "By reducing the number of repeat offenders, they are in effect reducing the supply of profit producing 'customers'". This is one of the often voiced concerns regarding prisons for profit, but along the same type of reasoning, a person could also say that it is more profitable for doctors and pharmaceutical companies to keep people sick in order to retain customers and generate profit. Or perhaps, it would be better to use drug and alcohol treatment facilities as a comparison to the private prison industry. Having worked in the treatment business for quite some time I have heard it said that it would be better for business if recidivism rates remain high, therefore private treatment facilities must want people to remain sick. My common response to people who make this type of comment is that there will never be a lack of drug addicts and alcoholics to treat in America, and although my job depends on people's addictions, my intention to help them get better is driven by basic human compassion and not profit. The same can be said for the prison industry; crime will always happen and there will never be a lack of criminals to incarcerate, or even better, to rehabilitate.
Privatization refers to the transfer of traditional responsibilities from the public sector to the private sector. Privatization is not an original evil, "historically, all prisons were private endeavors which gradually came under the control of government", but the current trend towards privatization is motivated by slightly different goals than it was historically. Privatization today is both a new capitalistic opportunity for the wealthy and a solution to overcrowding in jails and prisons. Three trends in the criminal justice arena converged in the 1980's to create the prison industrial complex: The ideological imperatives of the free market; the huge increase in the number of prisoners: and the concomitant increase in imprisonment costs. In some cases, government will consider privatization in an effort to reduce the overall cost of corrections, but since the genesis of the private prison in this current criminal justice era, research has been conducted that fails to support the idea that private prisons will save money.
Privately operated prison facilities held 86,626 inmates and the largest drop was among inmates was in the state of Texas. Proponents of privatization argue that accountability will be increased by privatization, whereas opponents argue that the result will be that private contracting agencies will actually be insulated from public scrutiny. Opponents argue that private prisons might selfishly reduce costs at the expense of the inmate's rehabilitation and living conditions. Both have good arguments, but there needs to be more research done on the quality of care within private prisons.
Prisons all across America are "Cashing in on tight labor markets and public disenchantment with rehabilitation programs". Wall Street is cashing in on crime by urging investors to invest in the major corporations involved in the private prison business such as Corrections Corporation of America and Wackenhut Corrections. For-profit businesses are also making money off of labor within prison walls. In many prisons, prisoners are leased out to companies for minimum wage work and some state laws are being passed to encourage and even require prisons to become involved in profit making enterprises. In Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution, a law called Measure 17, passed in 1994, requires that work programs within prisons be run "to achieve a net profit". This is good for the companies that participate in programs like these across America, because it can cut a corporation's payroll costs by 35 percent.
The privatization of the prison industry concerns many who are worried about crime generating profits for big businesses. Their doubts are not entirely unrealistic, but the prison-industrial complex is not the real concern. To assume that companies could, or would desire more prisoners behind bars because it means more profits for them is paranoid. As an article in the Atlantic Monthly by Eric Schlosser titled "The Prison-Industrial Complex" points out: The prison-industrial complex is not a conspiracy.It is a confluence of interests that has given prison construction in the United States a seemingly unstoppable momentum. It is composed of politicians, who have used the fear of crime to gain votes; impoverished rural areas where prisons have become a cornerstone of economic development; and private companies that regard the roughly $35,000,000,000.00 billion spent each year on corrections not as a burden on American taxpayers but as a lucrative market.
One outspoken critic of the private prison industry Phil Smith has said that, "By reducing the number of repeat offenders, they are in effect reducing the supply of profit producing 'customers'". This is one of the often voiced concerns regarding prisons for profit, but along the same type of reasoning, a person could also say that it is more profitable for doctors and pharmaceutical companies to keep people sick in order to retain customers and generate profit. Or perhaps, it would be better to use drug and alcohol treatment facilities as a comparison to the private prison industry. Having worked in the treatment business for quite some time I have heard it said that it would be better for business if recidivism rates remain high, therefore private treatment facilities must want people to remain sick. My common response to people who make this type of comment is that there will never be a lack of drug addicts and alcoholics to treat in America, and although my job depends on people's addictions, my intention to help them get better is driven by basic human compassion and not profit. The same can be said for the prison industry; crime will always happen and there will never be a lack of criminals to incarcerate, or even better, to rehabilitate.
Labels: incarceration, prison
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
The Super Max Prison
The super max prison has been touted as the "prison of the future," but it is in fact a knockoff of Pennsylvania's nineteenth-century wonder, the Easter State Penitentiary. Pelican Bay prison in Northern California is considered a super max prison that uses isolation and sensory deprivation which often results in mental illness. These types of prisons are designed to warehouse prisoners and do not even hint at the possibility of rehabilitation. Pelican Bay is well beyond its intended capacity, which exacerbates the confining, mentally debilitating conditions for prisoners within its walls.
Today's super max prisons are designed to be extremely controlling and punitive. One of these prisons in Texas, the McConnell Unit, holds 2.806 inmates and keeps 504 of them isolated in an area known as administrative segregation, or ad seg. Inmates are kept in ad seg when they are considered dangerous to themselves, to others, or to the general peace of the prison. Unfortunately, these ad seg units, which exist in many of the super max prisons, have become known as torture chambers for the inmates. Prisoners in the McConnell Unit, designated Level 3 inmates, receive no deodorant, no shampoo, and no toothpaste-only a small box of baking soda to use to brush their teeth. "In 1999, a federal judge found ad seg units in Texas to be 'virtual incubators of psychoses'".
The checkered history of maximum security prisons reveals that little has changed over the years. In the early nineteenth century flogging, water torture, and shackling prisoners to walls were used to punish the more unruly prisoners. Since that time, uncontrollable prisoners have experienced less obvious forms of torture, but torture nevertheless. Super max prisons are built with the ultimate confinement in mind, and sometimes they border on primitive torture.
The loss of freedom is a punitive form of justice that is meant to partly deter criminals and partly punish them. The problem with todays super max prisons is that detainment has been advanced to a masochistic science. Foucault describes the strict disciplinary methods and hierarchal structure at Mettray reformatory in the 1840's and announces it to be the beginning of a new age of prisons. Mettray was a severe disciplinary institution that was built upon the philosophy of confinement to the one man cell and touted the wonders of its structure for teaching discipline. Foucault recognizes the need in these highly structured and disciplinary institutions for a "design of power" which gives the prison personnel the ultimate power and supervision over inmates. Foucault's idealized version of a prison and its disciplinary elements have largely been implemented today in the super max prison which is almost exactly what Foucault had envisioned, but the vision has become somewhat of a living nightmare for prisoners and guards alike.
One of the most troubling aspects of the new super max prisons is the system that is used to discern who qualifies and who does not qualify for assignment to administrative segregation among the prison population. To unsympathetically imagine an uncontrollable, psychotic criminal in administrative segregation is not to difficult for the average person, but imagine a non-violent criminal who has stolen a piece of pizza from a store and been placed in administrative segregation for months or years. It may sound absurd, but this is exactly what can happen today as a result of the three-strike laws. Non-violent offenders are placed in strict super max prisons for third strike crimes that are harmless. This represents a major glitch in the system of corrections and one that Foucault surely could not have foreseen in his idealized vision of a disciplinary instrument. The injustice will continue and prisons will become even more secure as the system becomes architecturally and philosophically focused on punishment through confinement.
Today's super max prisons are designed to be extremely controlling and punitive. One of these prisons in Texas, the McConnell Unit, holds 2.806 inmates and keeps 504 of them isolated in an area known as administrative segregation, or ad seg. Inmates are kept in ad seg when they are considered dangerous to themselves, to others, or to the general peace of the prison. Unfortunately, these ad seg units, which exist in many of the super max prisons, have become known as torture chambers for the inmates. Prisoners in the McConnell Unit, designated Level 3 inmates, receive no deodorant, no shampoo, and no toothpaste-only a small box of baking soda to use to brush their teeth. "In 1999, a federal judge found ad seg units in Texas to be 'virtual incubators of psychoses'".
The checkered history of maximum security prisons reveals that little has changed over the years. In the early nineteenth century flogging, water torture, and shackling prisoners to walls were used to punish the more unruly prisoners. Since that time, uncontrollable prisoners have experienced less obvious forms of torture, but torture nevertheless. Super max prisons are built with the ultimate confinement in mind, and sometimes they border on primitive torture.
The loss of freedom is a punitive form of justice that is meant to partly deter criminals and partly punish them. The problem with todays super max prisons is that detainment has been advanced to a masochistic science. Foucault describes the strict disciplinary methods and hierarchal structure at Mettray reformatory in the 1840's and announces it to be the beginning of a new age of prisons. Mettray was a severe disciplinary institution that was built upon the philosophy of confinement to the one man cell and touted the wonders of its structure for teaching discipline. Foucault recognizes the need in these highly structured and disciplinary institutions for a "design of power" which gives the prison personnel the ultimate power and supervision over inmates. Foucault's idealized version of a prison and its disciplinary elements have largely been implemented today in the super max prison which is almost exactly what Foucault had envisioned, but the vision has become somewhat of a living nightmare for prisoners and guards alike.
One of the most troubling aspects of the new super max prisons is the system that is used to discern who qualifies and who does not qualify for assignment to administrative segregation among the prison population. To unsympathetically imagine an uncontrollable, psychotic criminal in administrative segregation is not to difficult for the average person, but imagine a non-violent criminal who has stolen a piece of pizza from a store and been placed in administrative segregation for months or years. It may sound absurd, but this is exactly what can happen today as a result of the three-strike laws. Non-violent offenders are placed in strict super max prisons for third strike crimes that are harmless. This represents a major glitch in the system of corrections and one that Foucault surely could not have foreseen in his idealized vision of a disciplinary instrument. The injustice will continue and prisons will become even more secure as the system becomes architecturally and philosophically focused on punishment through confinement.
Labels: prison
Friday, December 14, 2007
Jails and Prisons - A Brief History of Incarceration
Prisons and jails have never been the monastic establishments they were at first intended to be. Since the first house of correction in 1556, at the former palace of Bridewell in the City of London the corrections system did little to rehabilitate. As early as the fourth century, popes began to decree that delinquent monks and nuns should be forced to serve a term of penitential confinement and by the twelfth century each monastery in Europe was expected to contain its own special cells for deviant clergy. What was life like in these early prisons? One story about the Nun of Watton describes the conditions.
Around 1160 (the Nun of Watton) became pregnant by another member of the religious order. Her condition was discovered, and she was fettered and placed in a cell with only bread and water to live on. She remained in prison after her lover had been castrated. But, as the story goes, through an act of divine intervention all traces of her pregnancy disappeared and her chains and fetters miraculously fell off.
Her story remains an important historical milestone to this day because it represents one of the first instances of confinement for a specific period for the purpose of moral correction, which remains the stated goal of the modern American department of correction. Moral correction may still be the stated objective of our criminal justice system, but the reality of our current penology is something vastly different.
The Quakers were the first to establish prisons in America around the early 1800's. The idea of the penitentiary as a place for penance was a concept first developed by this strict religious sect. Originally, the prisoners cell was designed as a place where the criminal could contemplate his sinful actions and repent for his sins. Prisoners were required to sit in their cell in complete silence. They were only given a Bible and something to work on with their hands. The cell experience was intended to produce a change of heart in the criminal, but often the person went insane instead.
Around 1850, prisoners were held in large holding tanks. The term "Big House" was coined during this time period in reference to the large warehouse style buildings the prisoners were housed in. By allowing the prisoners to interact with each other, the environment facilitated a highly crimineogenic atmosphere. The close contact prisoners had with one another turned prison life into a college for crime, much like todays prisons and jails. During this period, prisoners were forced to work outdoors on chain gangs. The focus was on deterrence and the idea of rehabilitation had been swept under the rug.
During the 1900's, the idea of rehabilitation briefly resurfaced. Prisons were called "reformatories" instead of big houses, and the focus was on curing the social problems that were thought to be at the heart of criminal behavior. Sociologists convinced the nation that criminals were basically good people who turned to a life of crime as a result of poor social conditions.
In the 1950's, psychology and the medical model set the stage for a prison system that was focused on correcting the individual and not society. "Prisoners were to be 'rehabilitated' through new scientific methods". The term "correctional facility" replaced the name reformatory, parole boards and intermediate sanctioning were created, and the modern prison and jail system began to take shape.
In the 1970's, after a couple of decades spent trying to rehabilitate the criminal, the general attitude was that nothing worked. Social scientists who studied the results of rehabilitation came to the conclusion that sentences were increased and many inhumane programs and routines were practiced. To everyone concerned, rehabilitation was an expensive failure. Society and government policy makers gave up on rehabilitating criminals and began warehousing them once more. Today, we are a society bent on incapacitation and retribution and we continue to stubbornly hold on to the idea that nothing works, but we are on the frontier of a new era that might force us to reexamine the way we approach crime and criminals, not because we have had a change of heart, but because we have no other choice.
Or do we?
Around 1160 (the Nun of Watton) became pregnant by another member of the religious order. Her condition was discovered, and she was fettered and placed in a cell with only bread and water to live on. She remained in prison after her lover had been castrated. But, as the story goes, through an act of divine intervention all traces of her pregnancy disappeared and her chains and fetters miraculously fell off.
Her story remains an important historical milestone to this day because it represents one of the first instances of confinement for a specific period for the purpose of moral correction, which remains the stated goal of the modern American department of correction. Moral correction may still be the stated objective of our criminal justice system, but the reality of our current penology is something vastly different.
The Quakers were the first to establish prisons in America around the early 1800's. The idea of the penitentiary as a place for penance was a concept first developed by this strict religious sect. Originally, the prisoners cell was designed as a place where the criminal could contemplate his sinful actions and repent for his sins. Prisoners were required to sit in their cell in complete silence. They were only given a Bible and something to work on with their hands. The cell experience was intended to produce a change of heart in the criminal, but often the person went insane instead.
Around 1850, prisoners were held in large holding tanks. The term "Big House" was coined during this time period in reference to the large warehouse style buildings the prisoners were housed in. By allowing the prisoners to interact with each other, the environment facilitated a highly crimineogenic atmosphere. The close contact prisoners had with one another turned prison life into a college for crime, much like todays prisons and jails. During this period, prisoners were forced to work outdoors on chain gangs. The focus was on deterrence and the idea of rehabilitation had been swept under the rug.
During the 1900's, the idea of rehabilitation briefly resurfaced. Prisons were called "reformatories" instead of big houses, and the focus was on curing the social problems that were thought to be at the heart of criminal behavior. Sociologists convinced the nation that criminals were basically good people who turned to a life of crime as a result of poor social conditions.
In the 1950's, psychology and the medical model set the stage for a prison system that was focused on correcting the individual and not society. "Prisoners were to be 'rehabilitated' through new scientific methods". The term "correctional facility" replaced the name reformatory, parole boards and intermediate sanctioning were created, and the modern prison and jail system began to take shape.
In the 1970's, after a couple of decades spent trying to rehabilitate the criminal, the general attitude was that nothing worked. Social scientists who studied the results of rehabilitation came to the conclusion that sentences were increased and many inhumane programs and routines were practiced. To everyone concerned, rehabilitation was an expensive failure. Society and government policy makers gave up on rehabilitating criminals and began warehousing them once more. Today, we are a society bent on incapacitation and retribution and we continue to stubbornly hold on to the idea that nothing works, but we are on the frontier of a new era that might force us to reexamine the way we approach crime and criminals, not because we have had a change of heart, but because we have no other choice.
Or do we?
Labels: incarceration, jail, prison
