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The Early History of Correctional Thought and Practice

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Title: The Early History of Correctional Thought and Practice


1
Chapter 2
  • The Early History of Correctional Thought and
    Practice

2
The Early History of Correctional Thought and
Practice
  • From the Middle Ages to the American Revolution
  • Galley Slavery
  • Imprisonment
  • Transportation
  • Corporal Punishment
  • On the Eve of Reform
  • The Age of Reason and Correctional Reform
  • Cesare Beccaria and the Classical School
  • Jeremy Bentham and the Hedonic Calculus
  • John Howard and the Birth of Penitentiary
  • What Really Motivated Correctional Reform?

3
Legal bases of punishment
  • Lex talionis
  • law of retaliation
  • punishment should correspond in degree kind to
    the offense
  • Eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth
  • Secular law- middle ages
  • law of civil society (vs. church law) developed
    along feudal system
  • feudal lords went to war over each others
    transgressions
  • Wergild- man money
  • money paid to relatives of a murdered person or
    to crime victim as compensation
  • to prevent blood feuds
  • carried view that punishment should involve
    participation of public

4
benefit of clergy
  • religion early source of leniency
  • members of clergy could be tried in
    ecclesiastical court, where punishments less
    severe than in civil courts(focus of
    ecclesiastical court penance salvation)
  • available from 1200s-1827 to anyone who could
    read text of Psalm 54 in court--ostensibly
    proved membership in clergy
  • common thugs availed themselves of the benefit
    by reciting verse from memory
  • Psalm 54 came to be known as neck verse

5
punishments in transitionfrom old world ?
penitentiary
  • corporal punishments (by various means)
  • death (by various means)
  • Englands specific contributions
  • transportation (banishment)
  • prescribed by Vagrancy Act of 1597
  • galley slavery
  • used as a reprieve from gallows
  • imprisonment
  • historically, used mostly for
  • political prisoners
  • those awaiting trial
  • debtors

6
Vagrancy Act of 1597 (England)
  • by 1772 60 male English felons banished!
  • 1718-1776 1,000 felons/yr. (n 50,000)
  • ? Virginia (1606)
  • convicts were given over to companies that had
    shipped them to colonies sold their services
    (per 1717 law)
  • ? Australia New S. Wales (after revolution)
  • felons served Crown/designee for of years
  • then, freed (via pardon or ticket of leave)
  • could then choose place of work
  • banishment consistent w/ social realities of
    time - response to social disorder/upheaval

7
early jails product ofsocial upheaval of 16th
century England
  • ? manufacturing economy (not agrarian)
  • ? breakup of feudalism (serfs, lords, manor)
  • ? 1,000s rural poor (wandering country)
  • ? urbanization (movement to cities)
  • consequences
  • ? poverty, homelessness, helplessness, idleness,
    illness, beggars, prostitution, crime
  • ? jails melting pot of dysfunctional population
  • plus orphans, insane

8
early jails bad!
  • combination workhouse, poorhouse, jail
  • mixed men, women, children
  • conditions abysmal!
  • filth
  • squalor
  • malnutrition
  • predatory environment
  • reform ? house of correction
  • combined elements of all three institutions
  • emphasis put idle poor to work!
  • from thinking of Protestant Reformationan idle
    mind is the devils workshop

9
Bridewell House1st house of correction (1553)
  • objective to instill a habit of industry more
    conducive to an honest livelihood
  • strategies
  • discipline work!
  • products to be sold on open market
  • facility to be self sufficient
  • failure...
  • facilities filled w/criminals
  • physically deteriorated
  • not profitable
  • reformative aim vanished

10
impact of Bridewell
  • replicated in Europe more successful
  • Holland, Germany
  • France (Maison de Force, in Ghent, 1772 - wheel)
  • Italy (Milan House of Corrections, 1775)
  • these became precursors to 19th C. prisons in
    America
  • they impressed John Howard, English reformer
  • Howard brought ideas back to England!
    (popularized in colonies)

11
What we will see
  • 19th/20th Centuries saw VARIETY of social
    experiments re punishment
  • based on variety of competing social/political
    philosophies from 18th, 19th centuries
  • witnessed general TREND away from brutality of
    ancient middle ages
  • these developments stemmed generally from 5 major
    social, economic, political, religious trends

12
1. breakdown of feudal order move ? industrial
society
  • elimination of class of serfs bound by birth to
    service of Lord of the manor
  • demise of agriculture
  • population moves to urban centers
  • rise of middle class
  • emergence of trades commerce
  • ? seeds of industrial revolution

13
2. ideas of the Protestant Reformation
  • Martin Luther (1599) man is capable of
    interpreting Bible (w/o Pope)
  • ? elevated man to new status of free thinker
  • ? weakened political/economic power of Roman
    Catholic Church
  • ? weakened Churchs role in definition/punishment
    of errant citizens
  • ? weakened Churchs role in creation
    administration of law

14
3. emergence of secular legal systems
  • new legal systems were developed by civilian
    authority to protect the interests of independent
    parties other than the church
  • new systems (e.g., courts) came to be
    administered by non-religious authorities
  • Exemplified by ? Anglican Church/ of England
    Henry VIIIs break from PopeA Man for All
    Seasons

15
4. values of the Enlightenment
  • 1600-1700s English/French social/political
    writers popularized certain progressive
    concepts, e.g.
  • Liberalism
  • Rationality
  • Equality
  • Individualism
  • Limitations on the power of government
  • Scientific inquiry.

16
Enlightenment (cond)
  • ? created new popular belief in
  • rights of man
  • importance of individual
  • concept of free will
  • role of government limited! protect rights!
  • e.g., Hobbes
  • life in state of naturebad
  • government/society formed to protect man from
    hardships of total independence
  • e.g., Locke, Montesque
  • government as social contract
  • man gives up rights enters into union w/ others
    for mutual benefit/protection

17
5. age of science reason
  • we are capable of discovering why how things
    happen
  • the world operates according to rules
  • we can use science reason to discover those
    rules that govern behavior (of both universe
    man)
  • Galileo universe behaves according to
    predictable patterns
  • Newton matter motion governed by certain laws
    of physics

18
result entirely new ways of viewing world
  • new beliefs re
  • nature of man human behavior
  • faith in our ability to change people
  • the relation of man to society
  • belief in the rights of man
  • equality of treatment (less brutality)
  • limited power of state
  • new schools of thought re crime punishment
    (popularized by writers)
  • Beccaria, Bentham
  • Howard

19
Cesare Beccaria (1738 - 1794)
  • Father classical school of criminology
  • Italian scholar applied rationalist philosophy
    of Enlightenment to CJS
  • Essays on Crimes Punishments, 1764
  • writings revolutionized thinking re role of law,
    criminal punishment, operation of CJS

20
classical school of criminology beliefs
  • man has free will
  • crime is volitional (willed, intentional)
  • man can change his behavior
  • man should be punished in proportion to the
    severity of the crime he commits
  • the basis of all social action should be the
    utilitarian concept the greatest good for the
    greatest number
  • ? utilitarianism (though Beccaria not thought
    of as father of utilitarianism)

21
principles of classical school
  • sole justification for punishment is its
    utility--the safety it provides via crime
    prevention
  • punishment is for deterrence, not revenge
  • prevention gt important than punishment
  • punishment should be the least possible,
  • punishment ? proportionate, dictated by law
  • certainty/swiftness gt important than severity
  • advocated penal reforms
  • avoid torture secret accusations
  • right to speedy trial to present evidence
  • humane treatment improve prison conditions
  • classify offenders age, sex, degree of
    criminality
  • ? Pa. penal law, penitentiary movement

22
Jeremy Bentham (1748 - 1832)
  • father of utilitarianism
  • English advocate of prison reform
  • Intro. to the Principles of Morals Legislation,
    1789
  • applied utilitarian theory to law punishment
  • founder of panopticon prison design
  • circular building with glass roofcells around
    circumference, on each story
  • e.g., Western State Penitentiary (Pitt,
    1825)Stateville (Ill, 1916)

23
utilitarianism
  • doctrine that the aim of all action should be
    the greatest possible balance of pleasure over
    pain. This will create the greatest good for the
    greatest number.

24
Bentham (cond)
  • hedonic calculus pleasure/pain principle
  • key concept in utilitarianism
  • rational persons behave in ways to maximize
    pleasure, minimize pain
  • law should assure that offender will derive more
    pain from punishment than pleasure from crime
  • advocated reforms
  • goal of law prevent, not avenge crime
  • eliminate barbarity, inconsistency in punishment
  • abolish transportation
  • segregate by age, sex, seriousness
  • improve morals, health, education of prisoners
  • ? religious services keep prisoners busy

25
John Howard (1726 - 1790)
  • The State of Prisons in England Wales, 1777
  • (major) English penal reformer
  • middle class, country squire, social activist
  • appointed Sheriff of Bedfordshire, 1773 but
    unique took active interest!
  • visited local facilities shocked by conditions
  • most jailers of time non-professional,
    unsalaried appointees - indifferent to
    care/conditions
  • collected (e.g., discharge fees) from inmates
  • overcrowding, no discipline, unsanitary (prison
    fever- typhus - killed 1,000s)
  • visited hulks, houses of corr. in Eng/Eur
  • returned with ideas for reform.

26
Howard (cond)
  • drafted Penitentiary Act of 1779 with
    Blackstone Eden
  • 4 principles
  • secure sanitary structure
  • systematic inspection
  • abolition of fees
  • reformatory regimen
  • features
  • solitary cells at night
  • hard labor in common rooms by day aim --gt
    Drudgery!
  • religious instruction reflection

27
effect of Howards work
  • slow to catch on in England
  • colonies much more susceptible
  • new ways of thinking in America
  • Declaration of Independence US Constitution
    championed
  • optimistic view of man
  • belief in human perfectibility
  • belief that crime f (environment)
  • individual rights
  • limitations on power/authority of govt
  • by-products of this thinking
  • need to reform of harsh penal codes/punishments
  • Mass (1785) Pa (1786) NY (1796)
  • preference for incarceration ( hard labor)

28
Penitentiary an idea with universal appeal
  • legalists ? deter crime
  • philanthropists ? save humanity
  • conservatives ? save money (inmate-produced
    products)
  • politicians ? solution to disquieting prison
    situation
  • industrialists ? new way of disciplining/
    training new working class to serve industrial
    society (e.g., John Conley-revisionist
    historian)

29
emergence of the penitentiary in America
  • reform ideas didnt materialize in England until
    1842 Pentonville, North London
  • but, quickly took root in colonies and laid
    groundwork for look operation of American
    penitentiary
  • Walnut St. Jail, 1790
  • portion of jail was converted to place of
    separate confinement in 1790
  • quickly overcrowded
  • Eastern State Penitentiary (Cherry Hill, 1829)
  • Western State Penitentiary (Pittsburgh, 1825)
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