The History of Incarceration in the United States. The Use of Private Prisons to Incarcerate Prison Inmates - Essay Example

?The History of Incarceration in the United s The United s prison system saw its early beginnings during the 18th century when the Congregate System was introduced as a method by which to house citizens who were accused of crimes in a separate place from the regular citizens. The male and female prisoners at the time were held in separate prisons and given individual prison cells. Although kept in the same prison facility, the men and women were not allowed to socialize and the women were usually imprisoned in attics. Since this was the time of the plantation era of our society, it was deemed wise to make use of the prisoners as manual laborers in the factories and plantations. Originated in Auburn, New York, the Congregate System prisoners were expected to live their incarcerated lives dedicated to penance and contemplation since society placed a high value on religious beliefs being the basis for forgiveness of sins. Due to the failure of the Congregate System in terms of helping incarcerated men and women reform and help them lead better lives after leaving prison, the Congregate system had to give way to a new method of incarceration known as the Reformatory Prison (Johnson, Dobrankza & Palla, 2005). This type of incarceration was used to help produce truly reformed citizens who would become part of the socially acceptable era of disciplined gentlemen and ladies. The men were made to participate in military drills in case they were needed to help fight wars, and women were taught the norms of housekeeping and social decorum. (p.6) Both were expected to become productive parts of the new society once they were released back into the general population of the time. However, both the Congregate and Reformatory systems proved to be ill effective in their incarceration methods. Neither method actually provided truly reformed inmates who could be released into mainstream society and be expected to be of any beneficial use to the public. Instead, they always fell back on their old ways and ended up incarcerated yet again. Such dismal failures were the Congregate System and Reformatory Systems that both methods were discontinued and a new type of incarceration was introduced. This became known as the era of the “Big House”. This was the era of remarkable economic and social growth for the United States thanks to the advent of the rail road. The prisoners, worked as part of “Chain Gangs” and participated in most of the construction work that the government was undertaking at the time. Remember, this was in the 1930's so our society was beginning to come into its own as part of a highly progressive and modernizing nation. Since our society had a need for male professionals in the workplace and the women were the epitome of housekeeping success, it made sense to use prisoners for the menial and hard labor jobs whenever possible. The Big House can be considered to be the first successful incarceration system in the United States that employed Corporal Punishment to any prisoner who refused to reform. Although considered to be a drastic punishment, the Corporal punishment worked wonders on the prisoners who were successfully reformed. However, even with those punishments in place, the Big House was still a more humane and effective method when it came to helping reform the incarcerated. This is attributed to the fact that the incarcerated Big House members were given a sense of freedom while in the prison and submitting to the will of the prison administrators. Thus allowing the incarcerated who truly wanted to reform a chance to mend their ways by proving their worth to society in their government assigned places of work like the “Chain Gangs” of the railroad tracks. (p.9). The early era incarceration system placed too much value on the norms of the outside world for it to be truly effective in reforming the prisoners. They neglected to recognize that while the person is in prison, he would be moving in a different kind of society. One that would dictate whether he survived to see his return to the outside world or if he would die on the inside. This inmate social culture came to be recognized in the 20th century by the prison system that was now called the Correctional Institution. (Pearson, 2009). Modern prisons are now more like cloistered communities, allowing the inmates to develop their own rules and regulations which can only apply to their prison life. These become the norms of the prison society but has nothing to do with the actual rules and regulations of the prison. Instead, by recognizing that the inmate culture manages to create their own version of an acceptable society, the incarcerated have a better rate of reform and survival while imprisoned. (p.2) Surviving the internal prison society helps make the prisoner value his freedom on the outside world even more and motivates him to become a better part of the outside world once he rejoins it. Unlike the old societies, ex - convicts are now offered a new lease on life by our society. Provided the ex-con is truly repentant and wishes to have that second chance at life. It took 30 years for our society to develop a penal system that would truly be effective in trying to help prisoners reform and become more productive members of our society. This was because the old systems insisted in bringing the outside world norms into the incarcerated world. These two worlds, or societies will never meet halfway not successfully integrate. This was a disconnect between the incarcerated and the people trying to help him reform in order to make him a better member of the outside world. Thankfully there were people like Mark Saunders who acknowledge that problem and did something about it. Mark Saunders, the warden of the Ohio based Southeast Correctional Institution wrote (2006) that we finally have a modern method of incarceration that actually works in reforming the prisoners because it now pays attention to what is truly important and changeable in the prisoner. These days, society helps the incarcerated by insuring that get a chance to experience what they could not in the outside world. Activities ranging from completing their GED so that they can get vocational training while waiting for their prison sentence to end. Little things like these help motivate the prisoner to keep his nose clean both inside and outside prison because he now knows that society does not see him as someone to be afraid of but rather, someone to be given a chance to prove that he has actually changed his ways. That is why incarceration is now considered to have a positive impact on prisoners lives. The fact is that America incarcerates too many of its own people. Somehow, even though we have come to an era that sees crimes rates slowing down, we still send too many of our own people to prison. The reason behind that is explained by Smith (1993): Under the impetus of Reaganite social Darwinism, with its "toughness" on criminal offenders, prison populations soared through the 1980s and into the 1990s, making the U.S. the unquestioned world leader in jailing its own populace. By 1990, 421 Americans out of every 100,000 were behind bars, easily outdistancing our closest competitors, South Africa and then USSR. By 1992, the U.S. rate had climbed to 455. In human terms, the number of people in jails and prisons on any given day tops 1.2 million, up from fewer than 400,000 at the start of the Reagan era. However changed our incarceration system may be, there still lies the fact that our modern culture has not dictated a lessening of the use of incarceration as a form of punishment. Rather, our modern society has found an increased use for incarceration as we continue to fear the influx of immigrants into our country who do not always successfully managed to integrate into our society as smoothly as one might expect. Our high rate of incarceration has educational, economic, and social factors that all contribute to this continually rising rate of incarceration in our country. References Johnson, Robert, Dobrazanska Ania, & Palla, Seri. (n.d). The American prison in historical perspective: race, gender, and adjustment. Retrieved from http://www.jblearning.com/samples/0763729043/Chapter_02.pdf Saunders, Mark. (2006). The evolution of correctional programs. Corrections Today. Retrieved from http://www.aca.org/pastpresentfuture/archivemessages.asp#dec06 Smith, Phil. (1993). Private prisons: profits of crime. Covert Action Quarterly. Retrieved from http://mediafilter.org/mff/prison.html The Use of Private Prisons to Incarcerate Prison Inmates According to former US Attorney General John Ashcroft (n.d..), we entered into the 21st century with close to almost 2 million prison inmates. Such a high number of incarcerated people definitely poses a severe economic strain not only on the prison administrators but also the state, federal, and local government. The 80's showed a growing public frustration with our penal system due to the lack of truly rehabilitated offenders. This led to a renewed call for the privatization of the penal system as the former New York Auburn and Sing Sing systems were run in the 1800's. (Smith, 1993). Looking back to that era and the need of the state to save money wherever it could, the U.S. Department of Justice has authorized 158 (and counting) private prisons on the hopes of saving 20 % in operation costs. Make no mistake about it, imprisoning people is a big business in our time and properly handled, it can present earnings for the company running the prison, and savings for the state that outsourced the service. Records have instead shown (Ashcroft, n.d.) that the savings amount to only 1 % stemming from low labor costs. Those opposed to the privatization of the system have argued that one of the main reasons behind our overcrowded prisons is the fact that America jails too many of its own people (The Economist, 2010). There is also the fact that our tax dollars are being collected in order to provide for the continued function of government mandated and observed correctional facilities with which to keep the public secure. By outsourcing the prison system or contracting it to private institutions, the government has made our general population unsafe from these criminals. In Arizona, two escaped fugitives murdered two campers before they were recaptured in 2010 after they escaped from a private prison. One would expect private prisons to be ultra high security compounds where one can get in but not get out. With escapes like the one that happened in Arizona, private prisons are starting to look more and more like a mere for profit business and nothing more. That is not where I want my tax money going. It would seem instead, that the private prisons are not making a single move towards actually rehabilitating their prisoners. Taking that into consideration, one might say that it is acting exactly like its publicly funded counterpart. That is why I believe that the private sector should stay out of the prison business. My tax dollars are spent keeping public prisons running and our government is responsible for prisoner security and public safety. . Private prisons use my tax money as well but do not have the same degree of accountability as a public prison during prison breaks and other situations that the government carries full responsibility for. Private prisons do not turn in a profit for the state, neither do they do a good job of securing the prison population against escape attempts. There is no public safety factor being considered by the privatized prisons, only their bottom line earnings from their government contracts which they will get whether they do a good job on the prison front or not. References Ashcroft John. (n.d.) Emerging issues on privatized prisons. Monograph. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bja/181249.pdf Smith, Phil. (1993). Private prisons: profit of crime. Covert Action Quarterly. Retrieved from http://mediafilter.org/mff/prison.html The Economist. (2010, August 24). Private prisons: the perverse incentives of private prisons. Retrieved from http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/08/private_prisons Read More