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<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0.2in; line-height: 100%">20<sup>th</sup>
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<p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">20<sup>th</sup>
Century American Prisons </font>
</p>
<p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Joseph
J. Green</font></p>
<p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Northern
Arizona University</font></p>
<p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><br/>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%; page-break-before: always">
<font face="Times New Roman, serif"> Throughout the 20<sup>th</sup>
century there were many reforms to the American prison system. We
will take a look at some of the architecture, prisoner programs, and
key developments grouped into three sections, the early, mid, and
late 20<sup>th</sup> century. We will also take a focus on racial
disparity and female inmates throughout these periods. As we will
see, it appears that the American focus on its prison systems seems
to shift over time, in an almost cyclical way with American attitudes
towards crime and prisoners.</font></p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><b>Early
20<sup>st</sup> Century</b></font></p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><b> </b><span style="font-weight: normal">In
the first third of the 20</span><sup><span style="font-weight: normal">th</span></sup><span style="font-weight: normal">
century, the focus on penance that was started by the Quakers with
the Pennsylvania prisons (</span><span style="font-weight: normal">Liberal
Arts Competency, 2015)</span><span style="font-weight: normal">, was
starting to come to an end. Instead, there was a rise on the focus of
individual treatment, educational programs, such as elementary
teachers being present, vocational programs, early release programs,
and indeterminate sentences (Schoenherr, 2009). </span><span style="font-weight: normal">All
of these programs were designed to encourage prisoners be valuable
members to society upon release, instead of simply giving people time
to think about what they did and repent.</span></font></p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><span style="font-weight: normal"> Prison
architecture </span><span style="font-weight: normal">i</span><span style="font-weight: normal">n
the south, often took the form of prison camps where prisoners were
contracted out to plantation owners. Penitentiaries were rather
unpopular in the south, as they had a preference for local, rather
than state, justice, but remained popular in the north. </span><span style="font-weight: normal">The
north now</span><span style="font-weight: normal"> </span><span style="font-weight: normal">i</span><span style="font-weight: normal">nclud</span><span style="font-weight: normal">ed</span><span style="font-weight: normal">
some “big houses” which were prisons capable of holding more than
2500 inmates </span><span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal Arts
Competency, 2015)</span><span style="font-weight: normal">. </span><span style="font-weight: normal">In
these prison systems there was a very real racial disparity, </span><span style="font-weight: normal">which
we shall see continue</span><span style="font-weight: normal">.
Blacks in the United states comprised of about 9% of the total
American adult population, yet they made up about 31% of the total
prison population </span><span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal
Arts Competency, 2015)</span><span style="font-weight: normal">.</span></font></p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><span style="font-weight: normal"> </span><span style="font-weight: normal">This
era saw several key developments to the prison systems. There was a
push for having separate prisons for adults, children, and females
within the prison system </span><span style="font-weight: normal">(Schoenherr,
2009)</span><span style="font-weight: normal">. </span><span style="font-weight: normal">This
also saw to the development of the juvenile court systems
</span><span style="font-weight: normal">(Schoenherr, 2009)</span><span style="font-weight: normal">.
</span><span style="font-weight: normal">However, male prisoners were
seen as more valuable </span><span style="font-weight: normal">than</span><span style="font-weight: normal">
the women </span><span style="font-weight: normal">who </span><span style="font-weight: normal">were
put to work for domestic chores which didn’t contribute much to the
prison systems, while the men worked on farms in the south, or built
goods for public sale in the north </span><span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal
Arts Competency, 2015)</span><span style="font-weight: normal">.</span></font></p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> By
the end of the first third of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, there was
a major move to end contract prison labor <span style="font-weight: normal">(Schoenherr,
2009)</span>. It was seen as giving unfair competition to certain
businesses, and eventually resulted in the north ending the contract
system that led to the sale of goods to the public, but the creation
of a system that the prisoners could make goods in which the states
buy, such as license plates <span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal
Arts Competency, 2015)</span>. In the south the states decided to
start buying up their own plantations to put the prisoners to work,
as opposed to contracting them out. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><b>Mid
20<sup>th</sup> Century</b></font></p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><b> </b><span style="font-weight: normal">The
middle of the century brought some welcome changes for prisoners. </span><span style="font-weight: normal">T</span><span style="font-weight: normal">he
“Hands Off Doctrine” finally came to an end (Maloney, n.d.). This
doctrine meant that prisoners were essentially slaves to the state.
The doctrine stopped the judicial </span><span style="font-weight: normal">branch</span><span style="font-weight: normal">
from interfering with state prison programs. </span><span style="font-weight: normal">A</span><span style="font-weight: normal">fter
it was repealed, there was a huge demand from the prison population
for more rights,. </span><span style="font-weight: normal">E</span><span style="font-weight: normal">ventually,
the supreme court began to grant constitutional protections to
prisoners </span><span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal Arts
Competency, 2015)</span><span style="font-weight: normal">.</span></font></p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><span style="font-weight: normal"> This
era saw a return to a focus on rehabilitation for prisoners (Campers,
2012). Prisons began to focus on bringing back education, vocational
rehab, and the like (Campers, 2012), after focus on such things were
lost for a while when the prisons became overcrowded </span><span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal
Arts Competency, 2015)</span><span style="font-weight: normal">. </span><span style="font-weight: normal">An
interest in prisoner rights was also bolstered by the c</span><span style="font-weight: normal">ivil
rights movement </span><span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal
Arts Competency, 2015)</span><span style="font-weight: normal">.
Diagnosis was added to programs designed to help prisoners, as crime
began to be seen as more of a</span><span style="font-weight: normal">n
act of</span><span style="font-weight: normal"> sickness than willful
</span><span style="font-weight: normal">crime</span><span style="font-weight: normal">
</span><span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal Arts Competency,
2015)</span><span style="font-weight: normal">. </span><span style="font-weight: normal">However,
in 1974, Robert Martinson came to the conclusion that “nothing
works” when it comes to rehabilitating people. He came to the
conclusion that no one treatment reduced rates of prisoners returning
to the system after release </span><span style="font-weight: normal">(Campers,
2012)</span><span style="font-weight: normal">. These findings
ultimately lead to a loss of funding for prisoner rehabilitation
programs </span><span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal Arts
Competency, 2015)</span><span style="font-weight: normal">. </span></font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><span style="font-weight: normal"> Prison
architecture didn’t change too radically by this point. Most
southern states did have at least one central penitentiary </span><span style="font-weight: normal">now</span><span style="font-weight: normal">,
but most prisoners were still working on large prison plantation
farms </span><span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal Arts
Competency, 2015)</span><span style="font-weight: normal">. However,
there was a new prison design called the “Telephone pole prison”
which began to flourish </span><span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal
Arts Competency, 2015)</span>.</font></p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> Women
began to receive increased equality in prisons, such as having
similar vocational and treatment programs as did the males <span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal
Arts Competency, 2015)</span>. During this time, prisons were
beginning to see less foreign born Caucasians enter the prison system
<span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal Arts Competency, 2015)</span>,
but had an increase of blacks,. Hispanics, and Native Americans
<span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal Arts Competency, 2015)</span>.</font></p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><b>19</b><sup><b>th</b></sup><b>
Century to Current</b></font></p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><b> </b><span style="font-weight: normal">Next
we find American returning to the theory that crimes are a choice,
not a sickness, and rehabilitation falls out of favor, largely thanks
to Martinson’s findings </span><span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal
Arts Competency, 2015)</span><span style="font-weight: normal">. A
r</span>eliance on imprisoning serious offenders became the way to
protect society <span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal Arts
Competency, 2015)</span>. </font>
</p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> In
this age we find less use for work camps and focus more on putting
people into central holding facilities. Bigger more secure prisons
are created for federal, and some state, criminals <span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal
Arts Competency, 2015)</span>. There is a greater recognition in the
differences between men and women, and treatment programs and
sentencing grows to reflect this. Women are often considered to be a
lower risk to the public, so it is believed that women should have a
greater consideration for community-based sentences <span style="font-weight: normal">(Liberal
Arts Competency, 2015)</span>. Blacks continue to be on the rise in
prisons. At this time, Blacks comprised about 12% of the national
population, yet more than 40% of the total prison population.</font></p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> One
key development of this era was the idea of retribution for victims,
instead of just fines to the state or jail time, gets increased
attention. This is good, but there is also an increased focus on
being tougher on crime and the start of the war on drugs. Drug
related crimes get increased punishment and mandatory minimum
sentences are introduced, which leads to an increase of prisoners,
and an increase in prisoners leads to the need for more prisons, or a
revaluation on sentencing laws.</font></p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><b>Conclusion</b></font></p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> As
we can see, the prison systems evolve over time. We went from
contract and forced labor of the early 20<sup>th</sup> century, to
having better rehabilitative programs for a while and increased
rights, to the modern day when rehabilitative programs are less
favorable and an increased desire to imprison more people and for
longer sentences takes over.</font></p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> This
is quite clearly a pattern. We start with trying to save souls prior
to the 20<sup>th</sup> century which evolves into trying to
rehabilitate people, to an overcrowding relapse, and eventually more
rights and treatment, until we find ourselves back at just throwing
people in prison with no real hope and overcrowding happens once
again. We are due for increased focus on rehabilitating prisoners,
and we must do something about overcrowding. The solution of building
more prisons doesn’t help the situation. It leads to an
embarrassment for the United States as the prison population grows
out of control. We do, however, see an interest in the
decriminalization of drugs in the United States, particularly
regarding marijuana (Governing.com, 2018). Ending the war on drugs is
a clear step in the right direction to lowering our prison
population. As of 2016, 47% (81,900) of federal prisoners were
serving time for a drug offense, and as of 2015, 15% (197,200) of
state prisoners were serving time with a drug offense being their
most severe offense (Drug War Facts, 2018). That’s a lot of people
being forced into the prison system due to the war on drugs, the
clear path to reducing prisoners is to reduce crimes related to
possession. It is clear that it is time for legal reform in order to
reduce the prison population. However, it is not clear that these
laws will change soon, but it is time for a general focus back onto
rehabilitation of prisoners and the prevention of relapse.</font></p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"> </font></p>
<p align="left" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%; page-break-before: always">
<br/>
</p>
<p align="center" style="margin-bottom: 0in; line-height: 200%"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">RESOURCES</font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.2in; text-indent: -0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.08in; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal">
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">Campers, S.
(2012).&nbsp;<i>A Failing Correctional System: State Prison
Overcrowding in the United States</i>. [online]
Digitalcommons.salve.edu. Available at:
https://digitalcommons.salve.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&amp;httpsredir=1&amp;article=1079&amp;context=pell_theses
[Accessed 8 Apr. 2018].</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.2in; text-indent: -0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.08in; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal">
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">Drug War Facts.
(2018).&nbsp;<i>Number Of People Serving Time For Drug, Violent,
Property, and Other Offenses In US Prisons</i>. [online] Available
at: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/node/2645 [Accessed 8 Apr. 2018].</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.2in; text-indent: -0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.08in; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal">
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">Governing.com.
(2018).&nbsp;<i>State Marijuana Laws in 2018 Map</i>. [online]
Available at:
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/state-marijuana-laws-map-medical-recreational.html
[Accessed 8 Apr. 2018].</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.2in; text-indent: -0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.08in; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal">
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">Liberal Arts
Competency 115 Objective 1 Lesson 1. (2015). Pearson Learning
Solutions, pp.34-53.</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.2in; text-indent: -0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.08in; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal">
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">Maloney, T.
(n.d.).&nbsp;<i>RIGHTS OF DETAINEES AND PRISONERS IN THE UNITED
STATES</i>. [online] Law.ufl.edu. Available at:
https://www.law.ufl.edu/_pdf/academics/centers/cgr/11th_conference/Tim_Maloney_Rights_of_Detainees.pdf
[Accessed 8 Apr. 2018].</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.2in; text-indent: -0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.08in; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal">
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman">Schoenherr, S.
(2009).&nbsp;<i>Prison Reforms in American History</i>. [online]
History.sandiego.edu. Available at:
http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/soc/prison.html [Accessed 8 Apr.
2018].</font></font></p>
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