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The Romans were among the first to use prisons as a form of punishment, rather than simply for detention. During the Middle Ages in Europe, castles, fortresses, and the basements of public buildings were often used as makeshift prisons. The concept of the modern prison largely remained unknown until the early 19th-century. During the 18th century, countries developed systems of mass incarceration, often with hard labor.[1][2][3] The first state prison in England was established in 1816.

Prisons are normally surrounded by fencing, walls, earthworks, geographical features, or other barriers to prevent escape. Remotely controlled doors, CCTV monitoring, alarms, cages, restraints, nonlethal and lethal weapons, riot-control gear and physical segregation of units and prisoners may all also be present within a prison to monitor and control the movement and activity of prisoners within the facility.[4] Generally, when an inmate arrives at a prison, they go through a security classification screening and risk assessment that determines where they will be placed within the prison system. The levels of security within a prison system are categorized differently around the world, but tend to follow a distinct pattern. At one end of the spectrum are the most secure facilities ("maximum security"). On the other end are "minimum security" prisons. Specific types of prisons include youth detention centers and women's prisons. Political prisoners are people who have been imprisoned because of their political beliefs, activities and affiliations.

As of 2012, the United States has the world's largest prison population, with over 2.3 million people in American prisons or jails—up from 744,000 in 1985—meaning 1 in every 100 American adults are in a prison. In the United States alone, more than $70 billion per year is spent on prisons, with over 800,000 people employed in the prison industry. Mass incarceration has a powerful negative influence on communities (particularly poor communities), creating broken families, economic disenfranchisement, and increases in criminal activity. A variety of justifications and explanations are put forth for why people are imprisoned by the state. The most common of these are:[5]

  • Rehabilitation:[6] Theories of rehabilitation claim that the experience of being imprisoned will cause people to change their lives in a way that will make them productive and law-abiding members of society once they are released. However, this is not supported by empirical evidence, and in practice prisons tend to be ineffective at improving the lives of most prisoners.[7] As Morris & Rothman (1995) point out, "It's hard to train for freedom in a cage."[5] While this view of prisons as centers of rehabilitation was popular during the early development of the modern prison system, it is not widely held anymore, and has mostly been replaced by theories of deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution.[8]
  • Deterrence: These theories claim that by sentencing criminals to extremely harsh penalties, other people who might be considering criminal activities will be so terrified of the consequences that they will choose not to commit crimes out of fear. In reality, most studies show that high incarceration rates either increase crime, have no noticeable effect, or only decrease it by a very small amount.[9] Prisons act as training grounds for criminal activity, form criminal social networks, expose prisoners to further abuse (both from staff and other prisoners), foster anti-social sentiments towards society (law enforcement/corrections personnel in particular), fragment communities, and leave prisoners with criminal records that make it difficult to find legal employment after release. All of these things can result in a higher likelihood of reoffending upon release.[10][11]
  • Incapacitation: Justifications based on incapacitation claim that while prisoners are incarcerated, they will be unable to commit crimes, thus keeping communities safer. Critics point out that this is based on a false distinction between "inside" and "outside", and that the prisoners will simply continue to victimize people inside of the prison (and in the community once they are released), and that the harm done by these actions has real impacts on the society outside of the prison walls.[12]
  • Retribution: Theories of retribution seek to exact revenge upon criminals by harming them in exchange for harms caused to their victims. These theories do not necessarily focus on whether or not a particular punishment benefits the community, but are more concerned with ensuring that the punishment causes a sufficient level of misery for the prisoner, in proportion to the perceived seriousness of their crime. These theories are based upon a belief that some kind of moral balance will be achieved by "paying back" the prisoner for the wrongs they have committed.[13]

Alternatives

[edit]
Main article: Alternatives to incarceration

Conditional sentences are sentences that are served outside of the prison walls and in the community with some sort of restrictions or conditions placed on the offender, in an effort to reduce prison populations. The requirements or conditions may include mandatory programs such as a drug or alcohol treatment seminars, curfews, house arrest, or electronic monitoring. Most offenders who receive conditional sentences are low risk and are usually serving time for impaired driving where no death occurred. When an offender receives a conditional sentence of home confinement in comparison to incarceration, the offender is still able to see family members, maintain a normal job, and attend school. This is a huge advantage to conditional sentencing, since offenders are not completely cut off from the external world. Although the offender is not locked away in a prison cell, the offender is still expected to stay at home during certain times of the day or night. In order to verify that offenders are abiding by the restrictions placed on them, electronic monitoring is often used. The development of GPS, which allows law enforcement agencies to know the exact location of the offender by the use of satellites, has increased the effectiveness of offenders serving home confinement sentences drastically. Offenders can now easily be identified and tracked down through the use of GPS allowing law enforcement officers to quickly move in to make an arrest when an offender is in breach of their conditions.[14]

The prison abolition movement seeks to reduce or eliminate prisons and the prison system, and replace them with more humane and effective systems. It is distinct from prison reform,[15] which is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons; however, relying on prisons less can significantly improve their conditions by eliminating overcrowding.[16] Abolitionists criticize the focus on "crime" as violations of laws that are arbitrarily defined by those in power—especially when these lawmakers are seen as oppressive and corrupt.[17][18] Abolitionists see most anti-social acts (violence, theft, etc.) as the result of social problems (e.g. poverty, racism, sexism) that cannot be dealt with by simply punishing individuals, and instead require systemic changes to address the underlying structural causes.[19][20]

Restorative justice[21] is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of the victims and the offenders, as well as the involved community, instead of focusing on satisfying abstract legal principles or punishing offenders (such as imprisoning them). Victims take an active role in the process, while offenders are encouraged to take responsibility for their actions, "to repair the harm they've done—by apologizing, returning stolen money, or community service".[22][23][24]

  1. ^ Foucault, Michel (1995). Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Vintage Books. ISBN 0-679-75255-2.
  2. ^ Kann, Mark E. (2005). "Concealing Punishment". Punishment, Prisons, and Patriarchy: Liberty and Power in the Early American Republic. NYU Press. p. 216. ISBN 978-0-8147-4783-4.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference history was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ For a broad overview of the technologies used in prison security, see: Latessa, Edward J. (1996). "Technology". Encyclopedia Of American Prisons. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781135582708. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ a b The Oxford History of the Prison: the practice of punishment in western society. Oxford University Press. 1995. p. x. ISBN 0195061535. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ Also frequently referred to as "reformation" or "corrections"
  7. ^ Roberts, Julian V. (2004). The Virtual Prison: Community Custody and the Evolution of Imprisonment. Cambridge University Press. p. 1. ISBN 9780521536448.
  8. ^ "Rehabilitation". Dictionary of Prisons and Punishment. Routledge. 2013. ISBN 9781134011902. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
  9. ^ Clear, Todd R. (2007). "Incarceration and crime". Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199885558.
  10. ^ Lerman, Amy E. (2009). "The People Prisons Make: Effects of Incarceration on Criminal Psychology". Do Prisons Make Us Safer?: The Benefits and Costs of the Prison Boom. Russell Sage Foundation. p. 120. ISBN 9781610444651. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
  11. ^ Goulding, Dot (2007). Recapturing Freedom: Issues Relating to the Release of Long-term Prisoners Into the Community. Hawkins Press. p. 8. ISBN 9781876067182.
  12. ^ Revolution in Penology: Rethinking the Society of Captives. Rowman & Littlefield. 2009. p. 39. ISBN 9780742563629. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
  13. ^ "The Impact of Prison on Crime". Do Prisons Make Us Safer?: The Benefits and Costs of the Prison Boom. Russell Sage Foundation. 2009. p. 120. ISBN 9781610444651. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
  14. ^ O'grady, William (2011). Crime in Canadian Context- Debates and Controversies. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford University Press. pp. 218–220.
  15. ^ Ben-Moshe, Liat (2013). "The Tension Between Abolition and Reform". The End of Prisons: Reflections from the Decarceration Movement. Rodopi. p. 86. ISBN 9789401209236. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
  16. ^ Handbook of basic principles and promising practices on Alternatives to Imprisonment (PDF). United Nations. April 2007. ISBN 978-92-1-148220-1.
  17. ^ For instance, prior to the U.S. Civil War, slaves who escaped captivity were "breaking the law". People who resisted the Nazi government in Germany or the Apartheid government in South Africa were also seen as "criminals" and punished by the judicial system. But while of these people committed crimes, few today would argue that "justice" was served by punishing them.
  18. ^ "Demythologizing Our Views of Prison". Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists. Critical Resistance. 2005. ISBN 9780976707011. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)
  19. ^ Mason, Paul (2013). "Abolitionism". Dictionary of Prisons and Punishment. Routledge. ISBN 9781134011902. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)
  20. ^ Davis, Angela (2011). Are Prisons Obsolete?. Seven Stories Press. ISBN 978-1-60980-104-5.
  21. ^ Sometimes called "reparative justice" (See Weitekamp, Elmar (1993). "Reparative justice: Towards a victim oriented system" (PDF). European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research. 1 (1): 70–93. doi:10.1007/BF02249525.)
  22. ^ Woolford, Andrew (2009). The Politics of Restorative Justice: A Critical Introduction. Fernwood Publishing. ISBN 9781552663165.
  23. ^ Hames-Garcia, Michael Roy (2004). "Towards a Critical Theory of Justice". Fugitive Thought: Prison Movements, Race, and the Meaning of Justice. University of Minnesota Press. p. 3. ISBN 9780816643141.
  24. ^ Coker, Donna (2002). "Transformative Justice: Anti-Subordination Process in Cases of Domestic Violence". In Strang, Heather & Braithwaite, John (ed.). Restorative Justice and Family Violence. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521521659.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
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