The Penitentiary Era: 1790-1825
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In the Penitentiary Era, which lasted from 1790 to 1825, prisoners were housed in penitentiaries, where they were supposed to do penance and be rehabilitated into productive citizens (Schmallenger, 2003). The Quakers converted the Philadelphia Walnut Street jail into a penitentiary in 1790, hoping to use religious and human principles to rehabilitate the inmates. Charles Dickens, on a visit to America in 1842, requested visiting a penitentiary to explore the new punishment adopted in the Philadelphia prison by Dr. Benjamin Rush of solitary confinement, an idea which sprang from the confinement of disobedient monks in monasteries (Brook, 2003). The prison had been visited a decade earlier by Alexis de Tocqueville for the same purpose, and attracted thousands of visitors each year. Rush was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a prominent physician and social activist, who objected to capital punishment, and also to corporal punishment which was administered publicly (whipping or the stockade) in the belief that public shaming would bring about the reform of criminals. At this time, prisoners were generally held in large jail cells, both male and female together, and often with access to alcohol, only until their trial and punishment. Rush believed that prisoners should be housed individually in 8 x 12 foot cells, and maintained in silence and in solitary confinement for the period of their sentence (Brook, 2003). He was responsible for the building of the
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Approximate Word count = 1023
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page)
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