History of Prisons

“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”- Nelson Mandela

Prisons began as a means of detaining criminal offenders awaiting trial and can be dated back to ancient Egyptian times. Lengths of trials varied based on severity of crimes, but ultimately led to prisoners staying longer periods of time. "The original purpose of confining a person within a prison was not to punish them, but was a means of keeping the perpetrator of a crime detained until the actual punishment could be carried out." (www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/history-of-imprisonment/). Personal freedoms were stripped from these offenders and hard labor was introduced in order to begin the "rehabilitation" process, the process of causing fear of committing crimes in order to better one's self. Imprisonment continues to dominate as the preferred method of "punishment" today. This essay shows the relationship between prison systems within the history of our country and how they were interconnected to one another during the same time frames.

In the early 1800s, the Pennsylvania prison system was put into effect, which marked the beginning of the penitentiary. Rather than pushing for violence, solitary cells were created in order to confine inmates by themselves for "inner light". While at the same time, the Auburn prison system was created, which called for solitary confinement at night and hard labor during the day (Smith, Austin Reed's The Life and Adventures of Haunted Convict, p. x, Editor's Introduction). These two prison systems were essentially the beginning of our nation's history of prisons.

With the assistance of inmates from the Auburn prison system, the Sing Sing Prison was built in the late 1820s, which became the original version of our modern prisons today. During this same time frame, The House of Refuge was also established, which was the first juvenile reformatory. As highlighted by Caleb Smith in The Life and Adventures of a Haunted Convict, The House of Refuge was not a refuge but was a "house of bondage ruled with the whip" (Smith from Austin Reed's , The Life and Adventures of a Haunted Convict, Foreword). During this time, slavery was abolished, yet racial control was still in effect and had remained a priority in the U.S.

After the abolition of slavery, "plantation justice" became the setting of our country's history of prisons for racial control. Plantations were created in hopes of siphoning out the blacks from the prison system so they can be punished under the "black code", a set of laws meant to keep control of African Americans after slavery, while the criminal justice system was intended to be for white people only (Adamson, Punishment after Slavery, p. 555). Black and white offenders were still treated differently even after the abolition of slavery. Separate and unequal justice was still a growing problem. African Americans suffered the harsher penalty of the law and therefore, new "prisons" had to be created. Plantations were then used as a way to control African Americans in a confined area to be used for cheap labor. This created the "targeting" of African Americans, which set them up to be the cause of all crime in an unjustified manner.

During the late 1800s, asylums were established in most states in the U.S. to find causes of the mentally ill. These asylums were meant to care and cure for those with mental handicaps but quickly became a holding area for research. Eugenics became the topic of discussion during this time, which led to the testing of the families of the mentally ill in order to find undesirable and desirable traits in humans to pass along and create a more desirable society rather than those they deemed "unwanted." "The growing demand for research on the personal and family histories of patients and prisoners confined to the institutions of the expanding carceral state prompted Davenport to open a summer training institute for eugenics fieldwork in 1910." (Chavez-Garcia, Youth of Color, p.50).

Now, going back to the plantation era, prison camps and chain gangs were then established in the 1900s to continue the prison system that was meant to hold African Americans. In this system, although meant to be seen as a "convict only" type of method to punish criminals, was clearly another method to segregate African American convicts and to continue to punish them after slavery. This was due to them being a target of law enforcement and made up a majority of the prison camps' population. It was urged to use convicts for the "Good Road movement", which "identified with the movement to take the prisoner out of the cell, the prison factory and the mine to work him in the fresh air and sunshine" (Litchenstein, Good Roads and Chain Gangs in the Progressive South, p. 88).

During this same time frame, the Indian Removal Act was set in place. This called for voluntary relocation of the Indian people prior to a deadline set by the government, which resulted in them being forced into moving to reservations that were created by the government, in order to free land for the white population. In efforts to subdue Indians, they were limited on what they could do within the reservation, which allowed the control by the government. This in turn became a sort of "prison" for the Indian people. “Alongside the penitentiary and the plantation, the reservation was emerging as a third major zone of enclosure, divestment of rights, and identity transformation on the American scene.” (Smith, The Prison and the American Imagination, p.178).

Late in the 1800s and early 1900s, the Immigration Act was established, which enabled all local immigration ports to be overseen by one office, the Office of the Superintendent of Immigration. In order to uphold a more efficient method of examining incoming immigrants, Ellis Island was established. This was the first major immigration port in the U.S. Since many immigrants had to be examined further, whether medically or for criminal backgrounds, they were required to stay until they were cleared/denied for entry. This process would vary on time, which quickly began to overcrowd the immigration port. Ellis Island was ran like a prison, which then became known as an immigration detention center. Immigrants were not allowed to leave and were treated like prisoners. "...In the early 1900s it 'was a grueling detention-like penitentiary'. It was to many 'a nightmare'" (Dow, American Gulag, p. 6).

Throughout the history of prisons, it is easy to see the correlation and overlapping time frames of these prison systems, and the effect each one had for the next. There was a similar purpose that was influenced by decisions made prior to each, which began as a way of holding criminals of color, the holding of slaves, holding of free slaves, holding Indians, and then holding immigrants. Minorities were the target of prisons and detention centers during this era, which leads us to the next section of this website, the History of Mass Incarceration.