A brief history of prisons. | Ashley Rubin | TEDxMississauga
Summary
TLDRThe speaker reflects on the childhood impact of Polly Klass's murder and the subsequent 'three strikes' law, leading to a lifelong study of criminal punishment. They explore the historical emergence of prisons around 230 years ago and the initial controversy surrounding their use, cost, and effectiveness. The narrative delves into early prison experiments, like solitary confinement, which caused significant distress to inmates, and how these methods evolved. The speaker questions the normalization of incarceration and prompts a reevaluation of our reliance on prisons as a society, amidst ongoing discussions on penal reform.
Takeaways
- 😢 The speaker's childhood was deeply affected by the tragic story of Polly Klass, which led to a personal interest in criminal punishment and the development of the three-strikes law in California.
- 🙏 As a child, the speaker had a unique prayer habit, asking for bad people to go to prison, reflecting an early internalization of incarceration as a solution to crime.
- 📚 The speaker's academic journey led to the study of criminal punishment in college and a career as a professor researching the history of prisons.
- 🏛 Prisons are a relatively new concept in human history, emerging around 230 years ago during the time of the American and French Revolutions.
- 🚫 The traditional view of punishment involved public and painful methods, such as execution or physical mutilation, which were later seen as distasteful and inhumane.
- 🔒 The distinction between jails and prisons is crucial: jails were temporary holding places, while prisons were designed for long-term confinement and punishment of convicted criminals.
- 🤔 The introduction of prisons was controversial, with concerns about their cost, humanity, and effectiveness in reducing crime.
- 🛑 Early prison experiments, particularly with solitary confinement, led to significant mental and physical health issues among inmates, prompting a reevaluation of the approach.
- 🔄 Despite early failures, prisons persisted, with modifications such as the Auburn and Pennsylvania systems, which continued to use some form of solitary confinement.
- 🌐 The models developed in the early prisons were replicated across the United States, influencing the widespread adoption of incarceration as a standard punishment.
- 🔍 The speaker reflects on the societal acceptance of prisons and the lack of ongoing questioning about their necessity and impact, suggesting a need for reevaluation in the context of modern penal reform discussions.
Q & A
What was the impact of Polly Klass's murder on the speaker's childhood?
-The speaker was deeply affected by Polly Klass's kidnapping and murder, which occurred near their home in California. This event led to a focus on crime and punishment, influencing their later studies and career in criminal punishment.
What was the 'three strikes law' and how did it come about?
-The 'three strikes law' is a legislation that mandates a 25-year or life sentence for individuals who commit a new crime after having two or more prior serious or violent felony convictions. It was passed in California, primarily motivated by the public outcry following Polly Klass's murder, as people sought harsher punishments for repeat offenders.
How did the speaker's childhood prayers reflect their early views on crime and punishment?
-As a child, the speaker prayed for the imprisonment of 'bad people,' indicating an early acceptance of incarceration as a just response to criminal behavior, despite the unusual nature of such prayers for a child.
What is the historical context of prisons as a form of punishment?
-Prisons emerged as a form of punishment around 230 years ago, during the time of the American and French Revolutions. They were a new development, contrasting with earlier forms of punishment that were public and often involved physical pain or death.
What was the difference between jails and prisons in the past?
-Jails were holding tanks for a mix of people, including debtors, vagrants, accused, and convicted criminals, and were not considered places of punishment. Prisons, on the other hand, were designed for the long-term confinement of convicted criminals as a form of punishment.
Why were public punishments considered ineffective or undesirable?
-Public punishments, such as hangings or physical mutilations, were seen as ineffective because they did not deter crime, and some people found them distasteful due to their public and painful nature.
What were the initial concerns about the implementation of prisons?
-There were concerns about the expense of prisons, the potential inhumanity of long-term confinement, and whether prisons would actually reduce crime. There was also uncertainty about how people would react to being confined for long periods.
What were the Auburn and Pennsylvania prison models, and how did they differ?
-The Auburn model involved prisoners working together silently in large rooms during the day and solitary confinement at night. The Pennsylvania model, on the other hand, kept prisoners in solitary confinement for their entire sentence, with occasional visits from penal reformers and prison administrators.
Why did the speaker find the early failures of prisons significant?
-The early failures of prisons, particularly the experiment with total solitary confinement, left a lasting impression and led to intense scrutiny. Despite the failures, the focus was on fixing the prison system rather than questioning the concept of imprisonment itself.
How has society's attitude towards prisons evolved over time?
-Society has become accustomed to the use of prisons, even in the face of failures and ongoing issues such as high costs and negative impacts on prisoners' mental health. The initial fears and questions about the long-term effects of imprisonment have largely been set aside in favor of reforming the prison system.
Outlines
🕯️ The Impact of Crime on Childhood and the Birth of Prisons
This paragraph recounts the narrator's childhood experience with crime, sparked by the murder of Polly Klass, which led to a personal interest in criminal punishment. The story reflects on the societal shift towards longer prison sentences, exemplified by California's three-strikes law. The narrator's journey from praying for criminals to be imprisoned to studying prisons academically is highlighted. The paragraph also delves into the historical novelty of prisons, which emerged around 230 years ago, contrasting with the long-standing practice of other forms of punishment. The narrator ponders the normalization of incarceration and its historical development, challenging the common assumption that prisons have always been the standard punishment for crime.
🏛️ The Evolution from Public Punishments to the Concept of Prisons
The second paragraph discusses the historical context of punishment, shifting from public and painful executions to the idea of incarceration. It describes the distaste for public punishments and the growing concern over the inhumanity and ineffectiveness of such practices. The paragraph outlines the emergence of prisons as an alternative during the American Revolution, highlighting the controversy and the challenges of establishing them. It details the initial failures of prisons, such as the solitary confinement experiment at New York's first state prison, which led to severe mental and physical health issues among inmates. The narrative also touches on the economic and humanitarian concerns of early prisons, as well as the public's nervousness about their impact on crime rates.
🔒 The Persistence and Criticism of the Prison System
The final paragraph examines the persistence of the prison system despite its early failures and the ongoing debates about its effectiveness and humanity. It describes two models of prison operation: the Auburn system, where prisoners worked silently together during the day but were kept in solitary confinement at night, and the Pennsylvania system, which emphasized solitary confinement with occasional educational visits. The paragraph notes the scrutiny and criticism prisons received, particularly from figures like Charles Dickens, who was aghast at the conditions in Eastern State Penitentiary. Despite the criticism, the paragraph reflects on society's acceptance of prisons as a norm and the lack of questioning about the necessity of incarceration. It concludes by posing a question about the future of penal reform, suggesting that it might be time to consider alternatives to the prison system.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Crime
💡Three Strikes Law
💡Prison
💡Punishment
💡Incarceration
💡Penal Reform
💡Solitary Confinement
💡Auburn System
💡Pennsylvania System
💡Criminal Justice System
💡Inmate
Highlights
The impact of Polly Klass' murder on the development of California's three strikes law.
The personal connection to crime and the evolution of the speaker's interest in criminal punishment.
The historical novelty of prisons, emerging only around 230 years ago.
The distinction between jails, which are holding tanks, and prisons, which are for long-term punishment.
The public and painful nature of historical punishments, such as public executions.
The shift in attitudes towards public punishments and the rise of penal reformers.
The controversial introduction of prisons as a new form of punishment.
The high costs and long construction times associated with building early prisons.
Concerns about the humanity of prisons and the potential negative effects of long-term confinement.
The failed experiment of total solitary confinement and its impact on prisoners' mental health.
The development of the Auburn and Pennsylvania prison models as responses to the failures of early prisons.
The lasting criticism and scrutiny faced by prisons, particularly Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary.
Charles Dickens' critique of the Eastern State Penitentiary and his views on the Auburn system.
The normalization of prisons and the decline in questioning their fundamental role in society.
The current discussion on penal reform and the potential for rethinking the use of prisons.
The speaker's call to consider alternatives to prisons in light of ongoing issues within the prison system.
Transcripts
I thought about crime a lot as a little
kid when I was eight years old a little
girl named Polly Klass was kidnapped not
far from where I lived in California she
was taken out of her bedroom window and
later found murdered the man who
committed this terrible crime was a
repeat offender people said if only he
was still in prison
serving time for his previous offense
this never would have happened so people
started calling for longer prison
sentences in fact Polly's murder became
the primary motivation for California
voters to pass the nation's harshest
three strikes law under this law people
who had previously committed a felony
could go to prison for 25 years or life
when they committed a new crime I think
this whole thing had a big impact on me
because around the same time I don't
remember exactly when I started doing
something rather strange I was raised
Catholic so I'd say your prayers every
night laying in bed with my eyes closed
and hands folded on my chest I would ask
God to bless my parents and siblings to
help make me a good person and the
please make sure all the bad people go
to prison looking back at this habit a
good 25 years later I can't help but
think it's a little strange that as a
child I prayed for people to go to
prison I really thought about crime a
lot maybe that's why I decided to study
criminal punishment in college then
maybe that's why now that I'm a college
professor I spend my time studying
prisons throughout history basically
going to go to archives to study diaries
letters newspapers and records from old
prisons I'm kind of like a less
adventurous version of Indiana Jones
now as someone who studies prisons for a
living I look back at 8-year old me and
wonder how had I already decided that
prison is the appropriate punishment for
serious crime how does that happen how
did sending people to prison become so
normal
how did we as a society decide that
incarceration is the correct punishment
for a lot of people sending someone to
prison just seems like the natural thing
to do it's what we've always done right
short various times we've tortured and
killed people for committing crime but
we've always had prisons around for
average criminals right that's certainly
what I thought for a long time
but it turns out that's not exactly
right prisons are actually a pretty new
development in human history they only
emerged about 230 years ago around the
time of the American and French
Revolutions they popped up first in the
new United States than in England and
then in other places like Canada and
France people are usually surprised by
this
I always surprised by this the first
time I found out that's because we've
all seen movies or read stories about
olden times with people kept in some
sort of confinement like if you saw the
movie the Pirates of the Caribbean
there are several scenes with people
captain in a sort of cage you know like
the one with the dog the dog has the
keys in his mouth and the men have a
bone and they're trying to get the dog
to bring them the keys so they can break
out the men look like they're starving
their clothing is in tatters and they're
behind bars Johnny Depp is also in there
because he was a pirate a criminal but
that's not a prison now when I say a
prison I mean a place where we punish
convicted offenders for long term
confinement what we're seeing in movies
are actually what we would call jails so
what's the difference between a jail and
a prison a jail is actually a holding
tank not a place of punishment it
contained a mix of people not just
convicted criminals not even just
criminals and it usually kept people for
short periods of time days maybe weeks
this is what an English jail looked like
in the mid 1700s
now as awful as places like this were
they weren't considered places of
punishment nor were they just for
criminals instead they contained quite a
mix of people including debtors vagrants
accused criminals convicted criminals
and even sometimes witnesses held over
for trial and they were all kept
together in one big room criminals and
non criminals alike and they were all
kept there for different reasons
debtors would stay in jail until they
had paid back their debt accused
criminals would stay in jail until they
had been tried in court in those days
the court was held four times a year so
they might have to wait up to three
months for their trial convicted
criminals might be punished right away
but then go back to the jail so that
they could pay back their court fees and
fines in each of these cases staying in
jail wasn't supposed to be a punishment
but just a way to keep track of people
temporarily so they tended to stay for
short periods days weeks maybe months
so if jails weren't considered places of
punishment and they weren't just for
convicted criminals what was this is
what punishment looked like capital
punishment was the dominant well they're
not the most common form of punishment
at the time executions were public and
typically the whole town turned out to
see somebody get hanged or in some cases
burned boiled drowned or stoned death
wasn't just a serious punishment it was
a painful one as well other punishments
were also public and painful these
included whipping cutting off an ear
getting branded in the cheek or in the
hand this was one of the most mild
punishments at the time few people would
be sentenced to spend a few hours or
maybe a day in these wooden devices
called the pillory crowds would come out
to mock and jeer the people or maybe
throw rotten food and rocks at them so
how do we go from these to this around
the time of the American Revolution
things started to change in England
other European countries Canada and the
United States a growing number of people
found public painful punishments
distasteful others were worried that
these public painful punishments didn't
scare people in us people picking
pockets in the crowd of an execution was
pretty good evidence that the current
punishments didn't deter
others were worried or others turned
their attention to the jails
jails were overcrowded disease-infested
violent places and some people had a
problem with that it was in this context
that penal reformers and political
theorists began discussing alternatives
to this criminal justice system such as
it was and they came up with the prison
a new facility designed to punish
convicted criminals with long term
confinement what I find interesting
about the rise of the prison is it was
extremely controversial especially in
England and the new United States
no one knew how the prison would work in
reality some people were worried about
the expense prisons were and continue to
be extremely expensive undertakings
scaffolds and pillars were pretty cheap
and easy to build
likewise jails were just typical
buildings nothing fancy but prisons big
stone edifice is capable of holding 200
or maybe 500 people were extremely
expensive undertakings and they took
several years to build they also needed
a full staff to run them prison wardens
and superintendents usually supervised a
staff of about a dozen or so guards each
of whom needed to be paid by contrast
jailers in the old days would be paid by
the prisoners themselves who paid room
and board aside from the expense the
other big concern people had was whether
prisons would be sufficiently humane no
one knew how people would react in
captivity so penal reformers and
legislators endlessly discussed what
would happen when you put a human being
in captivity finally a lot of people
were nervous about whether the new
prisons would actually help to reduce
crime at the time people believed crime
was caused by your environment
especially the negative influence of
criminal types including potentially
your family and friends so the new
prisons were designed to limit prisoners
contact with the outside world but they
also didn't want the prisoners to
interact with each other so one strategy
involved forbidding prisoners from
talking with one another and then
whipping them if they did talk another
strategy to involve putting prisoners in
solitary confinement basically in a Cell
by themselves for the entire time so
even before the first prisons Oh
and people were nervous about their
expense about their humanity and about
their ability to reduce crime but what
really got people nervous was when they
started trying to put these ideas into
action a lot of the first prisons failed
miserably for example New York's first
state prison experienced a series of
riots in the 1810s the prison was
declared a failure and the state
legislature authorized a new prison to
take its place
Auburn State Prison would be bigger
stronger and more tightly controlled
than its predecessor in fact some of its
prisoners the hardest and most atrocious
offenders in the language of the time
would we would be kept in solitary
confinement for their entire prison
sentence in cells that were by the way
about a meter wide so about this big
when Auburn opened in the early 1820s
these prisoners kept in solitary
confinement immediately experienced
mental and physical health problems
including muscle atrophy disease and a
mental condition called decompensation
basically people were going insane some
mutilated their bodies others attempted
suicide and some died after a few years
officials called an end this experiment
as word leaked out policymakers around
the country declared this type of
solitary confinement unacceptable
something that I find interesting about
this story while policy makers decided
this type of solitary confinement was
unacceptable
they didn't think putting people in
prison was a problem because it turns
out even outside of this type of
solitary confinement people die and go
crazy in prisons it's definitely worse
when they're in solitary confinement the
whole time but persons are a pretty
harsh environment and people don't tend
to do well there the other thing I find
interesting about this story is while
they decided that solitary confinement
of this type was on it was unacceptable
they still believed that solitary
confinement of some kind was necessary
for the prison to function so in New
York the officials at Auburn State
Prison came up with a new approach
prisoners there would still spend their
time in solitary confinement at night
but during the day they would work
together silently in large factory life
rooms why boys Pennsylvanians decided
solitary confinement was safe
if he took appropriate precautions to
protect prisoners health so prisoners at
Philadelphia's Eastern State
Penitentiary cement their entire prison
sentence in solitary confinement in
rooms that were pretty big they would
also receive weekly visits from penal
reformers and prison administrators who
would teach the prisoners how to read
and write and also give them mentorship
whether the prisoners wanted it or not
during the day the prisoners would also
exercise their mind and body by working
within their cells making shoes chairs
and cabinets finally they had access to
a small private yard where they could
exercise the only time they would leave
their cell these two models the Auburn
approach in the Pennsylvania approach
were copied around the country so pretty
much every state that had a prison
continue to use solitary confinement of
some kind however the early failures
with the prisons especially the
experiment with total Salah count the
solitary confinement left a lasting
impression on people's minds prisons
became the subject of intense scrutiny
no people kept expecting that the prison
would fail like it had one Whitehead had
already failed so many times at this
point in fact the prison was heavily
criticized but not all prisons people
mostly focused their criticism on
Philadelphia's Eastern State
Penitentiary the one that kept its
prisoners in solitary confinement around
the clock most famously English author
Charles Dickens was horrified when he
visited that prison in a book about his
travels to America he criticized Eastern
for among other things imposing on its
prisoners and anguish so acute and so
tremendous that all imagination of it
must fall far short of the reality he
was sure Eastern's prisoners were slowly
going insane and if they weren't there
was certainly being tortured however
Dickens thought the Auburn approach was
great like others at the time he focused
his energy or his attention on the
approaches to incarceration not on the
practice of putting people in prison in
fact people continued to die and go
crazy in all prisons which by the way
were pretty expensive and crime rates
didn't magically decline but there were
no more repeats of the Auburn disasters
so in that sense the prison was a was a
six
over time when new failures happened
people always blame the approach to
incarceration or maybe the people who
ran the prison but never the prison
itself there was focused on fixing the
prison's worst parts and ignored the
prisons other bad parts so over time the
prison stuck around and that early
anxiety about what would happen when we
put people in prison for long periods of
time went away when I was growing up and
praying for bad people to go to prison
we as a society had come a long way from
those early days the days when
policymakers and prison administrators
were fretting so openly about what
happens when you walk people up for long
periods of time when I was starting high
school the United States was sending so
many people to prison that we had
reached historically unprecedented
incarceration rates when I went to
graduate school eight years later we
were locking up one and a hundred adults
but what has been remarkable about this
development when people are talking
about is not the fact that we send
people to prison but how often we do it
we've gotten so used to sending people
to prison even when something really bad
happens in a prison we talk about fixing
prisons and prison policies but not
asking if we should still have prisons
as a society we stopped asking that
question a long time ago and in thinking
about that early period I find it
puzzling how quickly people got over
their early fears about sending people
to prison and how when those fears
reappeared the answer was always to fix
the prison and not to get rid of it now
that people are talking about penal
reform again in Canada the United States
and other countries should we do what
we've done so many times before and keep
trying to fix the prison or is it time
that we did something else thank you
you
[Applause]
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