Treatment of prisoners in the u s continues to be
Excerpt by Essay:
Evolution of Prison Your life
What were prisons like, how had been prisoners cured and grouped through American history – including prison environments within the last few years? This kind of paper delves into these topics and offers the obtainable literature that validates the points to be produced in this article.
The History of Prisons and Prisoner Your life in America
In respect to author and Professor Jack Lynch, prisons had been among the earliest public properties when settlers began to fill and develop the New Universe. And there have been few long-term punishments that were meted out, and among those were individuals found guilty of being “debtors” (Lynch, 2008). The problem with putting poor people in penitentiary because that they couldn’t pay their bills was that “they could by no means earn the amount of money they owed”; but it wasn’t until the 1830s that the U. S. began to “abolish debtor’s prisons” (Lynch, 3). Rather than being jailed, convicted scammers were forced to wear characters on their clothes indicating the nature of their criminal offenses. In fact , until the year 1700, “criminals” were subjected to “public shame”; to wit, people who committed adultery wore an “A” (think Hester Prynne in the Scarlet Letter); others wore “B” (blasphemer); “D” (drunk); “F” (fighter); “M” (manslaughter); “T” (thief); and “R” (rogue) (Lynch, 3).
In the late 1700s American politics and moral leaders began to back away via stiff punishments like death by hanging for fairly modest crimes. The “most substantial issue with locking persons up” was that American prisons could be “less humane which the death and torture these people were meant to change, ” Lynch writes on webpage 5. That was because “corruption was rampant” and prisoners were expected to “bribe their owners for minimally adequate treatment”; but for those without the budgetary ability to bribe their protections, they were “allowed to pass away of neglect” (Lynch, 5). “Hygiene was appalling” and “open sewers often went through the facilities” in the late 1700s (Lynch, 6).
In 1841, prison reformer Dorothea Dix told the Massachusetts Legislature that criminals were “confined in galetas, closets, basements, stalls, writing instruments, ” plus they were “chained, beaten with rods, lashed into obedience” (U. H. History, 2014). Moreover, she pointed out that prisons were “overflowing” with lawbreakers from the rest of us arrested intended for spitting on the sidewalk to murderers (U. S. History). Abuses extended into the early on 20th hundred years, and in spite of prison reform motions during the twentieth century, the American Civil Liberties Union – that can be the court-appointed monitor in the L. A. County Jails since 1985 – offers documented instances of “overcrowding, detrimental conditions and extreme misuse of inmates” by protects / deputies (ACLU). Inside the
