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Prison Systems

Latonya Brown

CJS/230

July 28, 2010

Mr. Lester Julian

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This paper is designed to give insight on two different prison systems in America; they

are the State and Federal prison systems. Although they both house criminal in their facilities

they house different types of criminals and have different levels of security that they operate

under. This paper will address these topics including when prison first began, including the

prisons first prisoners.

Prisons has come a long way since the 1800’s back then prisons housed anyone ranging

from debtors, delinquent juveniles, minor misdemeanants and felons. The prisons were mostly

dark, overcrowded and filthy. All types of prisoners were herded together with no separation of

men and women, the young and the old, the convicted and the unconvicted, or the sane or the

insane. The poor conditions were described in detail by Charles Dickens, in his book “Great

Expectations”. He describes the prison from his own experience in prison as a child because of

debt. Prisons were reformed in the early 1860’s the housing conditions became a lot better,

education and books was offered to the inmates as well as a library.

Prisons today range from minimum security prisons and juveniles halls, to maximum

security prisons and mental institutions. The U.S. has one of the most organized famous prison

systems; however most of the prisons in the U.S. are facing overcrowding. By the end of 1988,

the number of convicted criminals reached a total in excess of 628,000, the largest amount ever

to be incarcerated (Lycos Inc, 2010). Over the years, the state prison has really progressed from

different models that have been introduced. The Panoptican design by Jeremy Bentham was a

large prison with a glass top that he argued would provide better lightening and supervision of

the inmates. According to law.jrank.org the Auburn model is best described as the establishment
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of a second New York state prison at Auburn in 1816 led to a new prison model and regime,

designed to keep convicts separate and unable to communicate with each other even as they were

forced to labor as penal slaves. “Industry, obedience, and silence”, were the guiding principles

of the new system. One of its chief proponents and rulers was Elam Lynds, who served for many

years as warden of Auburn and other prisons. By the early 1820’s, the Auburn plan had resulted

in the construction of tiny individual cells and workshops as well as rigid system of enforced

silence and harsh punishment. Each entering convict was assigned a prison number, which

served as his or her identity. Movement to and from the workshops was performed in a

regimented manner, known as the lockstep, which called for prisoners to march in a military

style human chain. There are two types of institutions in the United States, they are private and

state owned institutions. Privately owned prisons usually contracts with the local, state, or

federal governments that commits prisoners and then pay a per diem or monthly rate for each

prisoner confined in the facility. Whoever owns a private prison is making a lot of profits by

housing these inmates. The downside to private prisons is that these facilities can choose who

comes in as an inmate or employee. State owned prisons are trying to become privately owned

because of the money that could be saved. It is costing the state a lot of money housing inmates

and the cost are increasing as time passes. There are five types of security levels at both the

federal and state prisons, they are; minimum security, low security, high security, maximum

security, and administrative security. Each security level house different criminals depending on

what type of criminal they are and what security risk that they may be upon the inmates and the

prison. There are all types of criminals in our prison today including our white-collar criminals

or political criminals. These are the criminals who are either rich or own some kind of multi-

million dollar business, or they could be state governors or senators. These types of criminals
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normally gets the special treatment from the other inmates, they are not housed with the other

inmates. There are five state prison systems that have been identified. These five states are

North Dakota, California, Texas, Louisiana, and Minnesota. Each of these states has adopted its

own variations on how they perform their everyday operations within the prison’s facility; one

state might utilize a different style of capital punishment than another state. The commonality

between the states is very apparent; all five states share the same objective, which is to operate in

a safe and efficient manner.

The prison system has changed dramatically since prison was introduced, back then a

person could get sent to prison for anything and sometimes executed for things that were not

necessary. The prison system today is way more flexible; prisoners have freedom to do certain

activities that wasn’t even an option back then. Today’s prison system was put into effect as a

means to punish and also rehabilitate criminals. Some criminals benefit from being in prison and

some will never learn to change, but either way it goes if you do the crime, you do the time.
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References

Law.jrank.org (2010).PrisonsHistory-theAuburnPlan. Retrieved from

Http://law.jrank.org/pages1776/Prisons-History-Auburn-Plan.Html.

Lycos Inc. (2010). Prison-History. Retrieved from

Http://www.prison102.tripod.com/history.html.