CRJU Exam 4 Chapter 11 The History of Control and Punishment Societies make rules and laws Widespread dissatisfaction exists about the humanness of current procedures as well as scant evidence that they are any more or less effective than those used in earlier times Ex capital punishment Ancient societies did not have a criminal justice system Before 700 C E justice was a private matter there was no system to enforce societal rules so it was up to the family tribe group to enforce internal norms and to protect members from outside aggression Ex blood feud corporal punishment is to inflict a carefully measured amount of pain considered to be proportional to the offense entails inflicting physical harm on the body The idea behind Corporal punishment o Torture the infliction of severe or prolonged pain is a method of coercion revenge and punishment Drawing and quartering entails tying the arms and legs of the victim to four horses which are then sent in different directions o Flogging whipping Whippings were used to intimidate others who might be tempted to break the rules The whips often had 3 thongs of leather all different sizes o Branding identified criminals and prevented them from blending into the community Ex The Scarlet Letter Physical branding is an extreme measure because it is permanent o Mutilation an eye for an eye Castration was used in many societies to punish those who committed sexual offenses Mutilation existed in the penal code of every European nation and was transported to American colonies o Humiliation many societies used public humiliation and shaming techniques to various criminal offenses They served a duel purpose they exacted a degree of punishment on the offender while reinforcing community norms Ex picking up trash on the highway And labeling sex offenders and drunk drivers online o Shock death not too severe but got the offenders attention They used psychological torture by telling an offender they were to be hanged and then taking them and telling them that their life was spared and they are shocked Economic punishment times convict labor was a favorite mechanism both for punishment and getting the work of society done extracting labor from the offender ex convict labor In hard o The galley ships were powered by wind and human labor Naval fleets had prisoners shackled to their oars and were made to row large vessels long distances This punishment was used primarily for those who were sentenced to death Many individuals died as a result of the unsanitary conditions and extreme physical exertion o Workhouses when labor is abundant the prions are full when labor is scarce either fewer people are incarcerated or the authorities find ways to exploit the offenders Parliament established Bridewell a place where the poor were put to work and supposedly learned good work habits Work houses for the poor became jails for petty offenders John Howard was appalled by the conditions of the prisons and got Parliament to pass the Penitentiary Act of 1779 which addressed the living conditions of inmates the need to make productive use of their labor and humane treatment o Exile and transportation Transportation is the practice of exiling offenders to far flung colonies Served 2 primary purposes it rid the mother country of a good number of the bad people and the colonies has a significant demand for the labor of the surplus population of the mother country England shipped prisoners to the New World colonies America and Australia for them to fulfill their sentence Prisons in America prison efforts have been aimed at making the institution more effective more humane and more palatable to the public early penal institutions were under local control and mixed Control of the colonies various types of offenders The Quakers of Pennsylvania suggested that incarceration and hard labor were preferable to corporal punishment PA s 1786 penal code allowed inmates to work on public projects while chained to cannonballs and dressed in brightly colored clothes The Walnut Street jail demonstrated all the shortcomings of early jails such as housing men and women together and the guards selling alcohol to inmates It was converted in 1792 into the nations first penitentiary in which the most hardened convicts were kept in single cells The first institution to resemble a modern penitentiary was Castle Island in Massachusetts s Boston Harbor Development of the Penitentiary 1780 1860 The Pennsylvania System which was characterized by the separate and silent system Inmates could reflect on their offenses and reform Many developed severe mental problems because of the oppressive boredom and lack of human contact in 1829 the state of PA opened the Eastern State Penitentiary The Auburn System o Separate and silent method of penal control pioneered by Philadelphia s Eastern State Penitentiary in which inmates were kept from seeing or talking to one another This method is comparable to solitary confinement in modern prisons The Auburn prison opened in 1817 in New York at first tried the separate and silent system By 1823 it was apparent that this system caused more problems Therefore although inmates were locked in separate cells they were allowed to eat and work together during the day but were forbidden to talk to each other This congregate and silent system which forbidded face to face contact required inmates to march in lockstep and keep their eyes downcast Age of Reform 1860 1900 Charles Dickens was a critic of the American prisons ways saying that the people running the prisons have no idea what they re doing and they don t understand the torture and agony that they re putting on the prisoners European nations were experimenting with techniques designed not just to punish but to give inmates a better chance at successfully returning to free society on completing the sentence This new emphasis on reintegration was called the Irish System o Developed by Alexander Maconochie Sir Walter Crofton and Zebulon Brockway Alexander Maconochie made a system based on 2 fundamental beliefs o Brutality and cruelty debase not only the subject but also the society that deliberately uses or tolerates them for purposes of social control o The treatment of a wrongdoer during his sentence of imprisonment should be designed to make him fit to be released into society again purged of the tendencies that led him to his offense and strengthened in his ability to withstand temptation again o Marks of commendation