PRISONS AND JAILS

Chapter 11 – Prisons and Jails

 CHAPTER/LECTURE OBJECTIVES

1. Describe the historical development of prisons.

2. Describe today’s prisons.

3. Summarize the personal characteristics of prisoners today.

4. Provide an overview of the federal prison system.

5. Identify the role jails currently play in American corrections and issues jail
administrators face.

6. Describe the current and likely future roles of private prisons.

 A BRIEF HISTORY OF PRISONS
The emphasis on time served as the essence of
criminal punishment is only 200 years old
• Early punishments were usually physical and
often resulted in death.
• British convicts were often sent to the American
colonies and Australia
• Workhouses were primarily used to house
debtors, the unemployed, and vagrants
• Workhouse: An early form of imprisonment
whose purpose was to instill habits of industry in
the idle.
 IMPRISONMENT IN THE U.S.
1 OF 3
• Penitentiary Era (1790)
– These facilities emphasized solitary confinement and individual cells –
known as the Pennsylvania system
• Mass prison era (1825)
– New York’s Auburn Prison introduced a congregate but silent system
known as the Auburn system
• Reformatory era (1876)
– Result of a move towards indeterminate sentencing and early release
• Industrial era (1890)
– Large industrial prisons built, inmates produced goods for the open
market
– Southern prisons used inmates to replace freed slaves
– Prison industries were often very profitable
– During the Depression, labor unions put an end to prison industries
• The punitive era (1935)
– Characterized by the believe that prisoners owed a debt to society
that only a rigorous period of confinement could pay
 IMPRISONMENT IN THE U.S.
2 OF 3
• The treatment era (1945)
– Based on a medical model of corrections and a focus on
rehabilitation
– Offender seen as sick and rehabilitation was a matter of finding
the right treatment
• The community-based era (1967)
– Inspired by prison overcrowding combined with the treatment
era’s belief in the possibility of behavioral change
– Characterized by a move away from institutionalized
corrections and toward the creation of opportunities for
reformation within local communities
• The warehousing era (1980)
– Based on incarceration to prevent recurrent crime and protect
society
– Contributed to increased incarceration rates and prison
overcrowding
 IMPRISONMENT IN THE U.S.
3 OF 3
• The just deserts era (1995)
– Return to punishment as the main purpose of
incarceration and a focus on “get tough” initiatives
• The evidence-based era (2012)
– Built around the need to employ cost-effective
solutions to correctional issues
 STATE AND FEDERAL PRISONS
• Prison: A state or federal confinement facility that has
custodial authority over adults sentenced to
confinement.

• Jail: A confinement facility administered by an agency of

local government, typically a law enforcement agency,
intended for adults but sometimes also containing
juveniles, which holds persons detained pending
adjudication or committed after adjudication, usually
those sentenced for a year or less.
– 1,325 state, 84 federal
– Varying levels of Security
 State and Federal
Prisons 2

• The incarceration rate for state and federal

prisoners sentenced to more than a year has
reached a record 504 prisoners for every 100,000
U. S. residents

• Huge disparity between African-Americans and

Caucasians in prison
– Incarceration rate for African-American males
was seven times greater than the figure for
Caucasians
 JAILS
Jails
• As of 2008, there are approximately 767,620
persons in jails (12% are women).
• About 62% are pretrial detainees.
• A total of 3,360 jails are in operation today.
• State and local governments spend $10 billion
annually to operate the nation’s jails
 2 State and Federal Prisons
• Steady increase in prison population over past 30 years
– In 2007, 1 of every 200 US residents was spending more
than a year in prison

• Prison population characteristics

– Low education/functionally illiterate
– Drug dependence
– Unemployed
– Parents of young children
– Mental Health Problems
– Manic Depression
 PRISON FACTS
• The public has witnessed an increase in the
nation’s prison and jail populations from
nearly 750,000 in 1985 to more than 1.7
million in 1997. Today prison population is 2
million.
• Total U.S. prison operating costs (federal and
state) grew from about $3.1 billion in fiscal
year 1980 to more than $17 billion in fiscal
year 1994.
 Philosophy of Imprisonment
• Overcrowded prisons of today are the result of
“get tough on crime” attitudes that have
swept the nation for the past few decades.
 Philosophy of Imprisonment 2
• Original goals of US Prisons?
– Incarceration
• Alternative to corporal punishment
– Rehabilitation
• “Penitentiary”?
• Teach useful skills
 Philosophy of Imprisonment 3
• Justice Model: A contemporary model of
imprisonment based upon the principle of just
deserts.
– Emphasizes individual responsibility and the punishment
of offenders
– Focus on punishment and accountability
• Social Debt theory
 Overcrowding
• The dimensions of overcrowding
– Just deserts philosophy led to substantial and
continued increases in the American prison
population
– Even as crime rates were dropping
 Overcrowding 2
• Prison Capacity: The size of the correctional
population an institution can effectively hold.

• There are three types of prison capacity:

rated, operational, and design.
 Jail Overcrowding
• Factors contributing to overcrowding in US jails
– Inability to post Bail
– Court delays
– Limitations to pre-trial release
– Overcrowded court system
– Confinement of non-violent offenders
• Possible remedies?
– Regional Jails
– Privatization
 THREE DEFINITIONS OF PRISON CAPACITY

• Rated Capacity: The number of inmates a prison

can handle according to the judgment of experts.

• Operational Capacity: The number of inmates a

prison can effectively accommodate based upon
management considerations.
•
• Design Capacity: The number of inmates a prison
was intended to hold when it was built or
modified.
 Rhodes v. Chapman

• Rhodes v. Chapman - held that crowding is not

cruel and unusual punishment.

• Ex Post Facto: Latin for “after the fact.” The

Constitution prohibits the enactment of ex post
facto laws, which make acts committed before
the laws in question were passed punishable as
crimes.
 Security Levels
• Minimum
– Dorm-style housing
– Recreation, education, skills-training
• Medium
– More prisoner interaction/freedom
of movement. Generally smaller
than maximum facilities
• Maximum
– Most serious offenders
Most restrictive environment
 Prisoner Classification System
• Criteria for assigning inmates to particular security level based
on…
– Criminal History
– Danger/Violence
– Escape Risk
• Adult Internal Management System (AIMS)
– Record of misconduct
– Ability to follow staff directions
– Level of aggression towards other inmates
 Federal Prison System
Five security levels…
• Administrative Maximum (ADMAX)
• High Security – US Penitentiaries
• Medium Security – Federal Correctional Inst.
• Low Security – Federal Correctional Inst.
• Minimum Security – Federal Prison Camps
 Jails
• Managed by local Law Enforcement
– Usually County Sheriff’s Department
• Usually for adult offenders
• Mixed population of those…
– Pending/undergoing adjudication
– Adjudicated/serving sentence
• Usually one year or less
– Awaiting transfer to prison
 Jail Statistics
• 3,360 US jails
• 780,000 inmates in US jails
– ~15% Female
• 207,000 jail employees
– About one-per-three inmates
• Annual operation = $10 billion!
 Women and Jail
• Women comprise 12% of the
country’s jail population
• They are the largest growth group in jails
nationwide
• Fewer than half have are high school graduates
• Over 30% of women who are admitted to jail
have a substance abuse problem
– In some jurisdictions, it may be as high as 70%
• 4% are pregnant when they enter jail
 PRIVATE PRISONS FACTS
• Within the United States, a total of 158 private
correctional facilities are operating in 30 states, Puerto
Rico, and the District of Columbia. Texas has the most
facilities (43), followed by California (24), Florida (10),
and Colorado (9).
• Total revenues allocated to private prisons and jails are
estimated at $1 billion.
• Private correctional facilities makes up less than 7
percent of the U.S. market.
• Proponents of privatization have suggested that
allowing the facilities to be operated by the private
sector could result in cost reductions of 20 percent.
 Private Prisons

• Privatization
– The movement toward the wider use of private
prisons
• Private Prison
– A correctional institution operated by a private firm
on behalf of a local or state government
• Hold 6.8% of all state prisoners and 16.5% of
federal prisoners
• The growth rate of the private prison industry
has been around 35% annually
PRIVATE PRISONS
 Private Prisons 2
• Barriers to privatization
– Old state laws that prohibit private involvement in
correctional management
– Strikes by correctional officers
– State’s liability will not transfer to private
corrections
• Richardson v. McKnight (1997)
• Correctional Services Company v. Malesko
(2001)
END