American Prisons

Their Past, Present and Future

David Musick, Kristine Gunsaulus-Musick

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317616818
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Scienze sociali
• Categoría: Criminologia

Imprisonment has become big business in the United States. Using a "history of ideas" approach, this book examines the cultural underpinnings of prisons in the United States and explores how shared ideas about imprisonment evolve into a complex, loosely connected nationwide system of prisons that keeps enough persons to populate a small nation behind bars, razor wire and electrified fences.

Tracing both the history of the prison and the very idea of imprisonment in the United States, this book provides students with a critical overview of American prisons and considers their past, their present and directions for the future. Topics covered include:

•a history of imprisonment in America from 1600 to the present day;

• the twentieth-century prison building binge;

• the relationship between U.S. prisons and the private sector;

•a critical account of capital punishment;

• less-visible prison minorities, including women, children and the elderly; and

• sex, violence and disease in prison.

This comprehensive book is essential reading for advanced courses on corrections and correctional management and offers a compelling and provocative analysis of the realities of American penal culture from past to present. It is perfect reading for students of criminal justice, corrections, penology and the sociology of punishment.

Chapter 1


Introduction

Contents

■ Importance of the book

■ Book overview

This book is about prisons in the United States. We examine their past, present and future. We rely heavily on the work of other scholars who have studied American prisons. We use secondary data (incarceration rates, number of executions, for example) whenever it is appropriate and available. We’ve included a good amount of information gleaned from reputable news sources. Overarching this compote of information is a “history of ideas” approach to the study of social phenomena. Imprisonment is, first and foremost, an idea that must be accepted, at least by those in power, and acted upon. If imprisonment of some human beings is accepted and acted upon, a universe of other prison-related ideas will follow (location of prisons, size of prisons, inmate treatment, sentence length and on and on).

As ideas of imprisonment mature in a civilization, they take on the sociological qualities of structure and permanence. In terms of location and physical appearance, prisons become distinctive places. In populous states, prisons multiply and are organized into systems. This process has evolved to the point where prisons are woven into the fabric of life in the United States. Prison images seep incessantly into our consciousness through what we see and hear in print, in the movies and on television. In fact, it is arguable that prisons have become a social institution, just like families and schools. Like other social institutions, prisons were created to address long-term, ongoing social problems. Like other social institutions, prisons are normatively prescribed and legally upheld.

Inside American prisons, we find a rich array of undesirables, including violent offenders, property offenders, drug offenders, and the mentally ill, as well as illegal immigrants. The variety and volume of American inmates has, for all practical purposes, defeated all but the most stubborn attempts at rehabilitation. Instead, inmates are warehoused and then returned to their communities, having benefited little from incarceration. How did U.S. prisons get to the point where they do little more than temporarily keep undesirables separate from members of civil society? Why are U.S. prisons resistant to positive change? In the chapters that follow, we explore information that provides answers to these and other important questions.

Importance of the book

Imprisonment has become big business in the United States (Henrichson and Delaney 2012). The number of state and federal prisons increased from around 600 in the mid-1970s to over 1,000 by 2000. More people are imprisoned in the United States than inhabit entire countries, like Greece, for example. Annually, we Americans lock up over 2 million people, almost 700,000 in jail and about 1.4 million in prison. One out of every 11 inmates in the United States will spend the rest of his, or her, life in prison, costing taxpayers about $700,000 per “lifer.” Of the over 600,000 American inmates released from prison each year, about 400,000 will be locked up again before long.

The American practice of sweeping social problems into jails and prisons has become expensive, costing at least $60 billion per year. Our appetite for prisons is stifling other social investments. In California, for example, since 1983, 23 new prisons have been built but no new universities. Since 1991, the cost of running many state correctional systems has more than doubled. State taxpayers are facing large increases so that the prison system can be funded.

Lacking enough prison space of its own, the District of Columbia keeps thousands of inmates in federal prisons. Similarly, many states send “excess” inmates to costly out-of-state corporate prisons. The following is a partial list of state correctional systems that have sent inmates to out-of-state corporate prisons: Wisconsin, Alabama, Hawaii, Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Connecticut, Vermont and Wyoming.

Is there any end in sight? Will the supply of prisoners run down, or out? We don’t think so. Even though arrests for most crimes of violence and property hover at 30-year lows, judges around the United States report that criminal courts are swamped with new cases, ensuring at least one inmate will arrive in prison to take the place of each inmate released. Adding to the supply problem is a recent tendency of some American prosecutors, judges and juries to send some white-collar offenders to prison. If this practice of sentencing and imprisoning middle-class and upscale offenders were to catch on, prison space would have to be greatly expanded.

Many corrections administrators, policymakers, legislators and judges recognize that prisons are becoming too costly for use as a general “problem- solving” tool. They just can’t find a way out of the soup. Reforms aimed at reducing prison populations are afoot. The scrapping of harsh cocaine sentencing rules and the elimination of “two- and three-strikes” laws, for example, are attempts to shorten what are now lengthy mandatory sentences. However, supply-side forces loom even larger.

On the “inmate supply side,” several factors suggest a steady stream of new inmates will be heading towards lock-ups. For example, most American politicians, when facing election or re-election, support expanding police forces and hold prison systems in high regard. Politicians do this in order to demonstrate to the voting public that they are “super-crime-fighters.” Super-crime-fighter politicians leave unattended many important prison issues. Instead, they point to the full prison as proof that their solutions to problems are working. In the United States, a good deal of prison space is needed in order to house persons diagnosed as mentally ill, since there are few other public places to put them. Prison lobbyists, corrections workers’ unions, corporate prison operators and prison vendors help politicians see the need for ever-expanding prison systems. Finally, prisons in the United States are used to control ethnic minority persons who, many legal officials believe, might otherwise pose a threat to social order. Combined, these factors ensure that a steady supply of criminals will be available for imprisonment in the United States.

This book is critical in tone. The subject-matter of this book is provocative and troubling. Some readers will likely be left with dark images of a runaway system, ripping a wound into the very fabric of American society. We make no attempt to “gloss over,” “sugar coat” or trivialize this set of somber subjects. Our hope is that this book will contribute to a productive debate among concerned persons around the world about how U.S. prisons should be configured and run.

We exclude, herein, analysis of jails and juvenile facilities, in order to keep ourselves sharply focused on adult prisons. Our treatment of U.S. prisons is structural, in the sense that long-term lock-ups are imbedded into social systems. Long-term lock-ups display internal and external linkages. Habits of organization and patterns of communication are in place. Our analysis of U.S. prisons occurs within the context of these structures. This book is intended for use by college and university students, both undergraduate and graduate, who wish to deepen their knowledge about American corrections. This book will be useful for the general reader who is looking for information about how prisons in the United States came into existence, about how they operate and about where they are most likely headed. Finally, policymakers, legal officials, politicians and prison administrators might find, herein, the dissenting voice that is frequently lacking when important decisions are made.

For most of his adult life, the senior author worked with inmates, as a counselor and teacher, in a number of adult and juvenile prisons. For over 30 years, he has taught courses titled “Sociology of Corrections” at five colleges and universities. Knowledge gained from such experiences shares space herein with the insights and information provided by hundreds of scholars and writers who share our passion for this unseemly subject. A list of references, at the end of this book, provides some small indication of our debt to these people.

Book overview

Chapter 1 explores the philosophy of imprisonment in the United States, as it took shape during early occupation by European armies and as it matured under internal political control. We examine the three primary goals of American imprisonment, namely isolation of criminals, their punishment and, simultaneously, their rehabilitation. American aptitudes for judging others harshly, and for turning our backs on them thereafter, are identified as the ideological pillars of the American imprisonment philosophy.

Chapter 2 provides a brief history of early American prisons, covering the years 1600 to 1900. Here, we see the basic themes of prison life take root, an emphasis on cruelty and inhumanity as ways to induce law-violating humans to be less cruel and less inhumane.

Chapter 3 examines the twentieth-century prison-building binge. We see emerge, from modest beginnings, a prison system thirsting for resources and threatening to push aside other, more constructive, social policies.

Chapter 4 tells the story of how federal prisons came to life and how they have become one of the fastest-growing, most costly, segments of corrections in the United States. We see federal prison policy usurp states’ rights, in terms of shaping the current character of prisons and their future direction.

Chapter 5 helps us understand how a handful of American corporations, and their executives, became major players in the prison game. We learn how to extract large profits from punishment and how to bypass voter approval, while seeking a “higher” goal, that of rapidly providing prison space.

Chapter 6 examines the American practice of executing inmates. We review the history of executions in American society, execution technology and the raging debate over its practicality and morality.

Chapter 7 focuses on new prison minorities. We learn that women, children and the elderly are showing up in large numbers and are staying longer, in our nation’s prisons. We examine the special problems that new minorities pose for corrections officers, prison officials and taxpayers.

Chapter 8 highlights two prison by-products – violence and disease. Each by-product is described in considerable detail. Explanations are provided of how prison by-products, not only contaminate inmates’ lives, but also of how their effects seep outside the walls, back into American communities and cities.

Chapter 9 summarizes what we have learned about the past and present of prisons in the United States. Finally, Chapter 9 focuses on the future of American prisons. We address questions like “Can the American prison system continue to grow as it has in the past century?” “Is prison the most appropriate place to house mentally ill persons, petty drug dealers and users and common thieves?” and “Is the American economy capable of sustaining the cost of operating one of the world’s largest prison systems?” Finally, we briefly explore some options for changing the character of imprisonment in the United States.

Chapter 2


A brief history of imprisonment in America (1600–1900)

Contents

■ Imprisonment in colonial America

■ American prisons after the revolution

State prisons

Federal prisons

Privatized prisons

■ Summary

Imprisonment in colonial America

If we use a conventional contemporary definition of prisoner, like “[A]nyone who is held in either a county or city jail, prison, or penitentiary,” or of inmate, like “[P]risoner of jail or prison” (Champion 2001: 69, 107), then there were few inmates or prisoners in colonial America. However, if we think of inmates or prisoners as persons “deprived of their liberty to leave” (Christianson 1998: 13), then there were tens of thousands in America during the colonial period, including indentured servants, slaves and other assorted persons exported from European jails and prisons. Most indentured servants were Europeans who contracted with American masters for a fixed period of servitude in exchange for passage to North America with room and board upon arrival. Some were indigenous Americans who indentured themselves to masters in exchange for the opportunity to learn a trade by serving as an apprentice. Indentured servants were frequently subjected to physical abuse and sexual violation.

In the early 1600s, via royal proclamation requested by the Virginia Company, England began the process of exporting thousands of vagrants and other criminals to the American colonies. Criminal law in England classified many violations as capital offenses, and under the threat of execution, prisoners awaiting trial usually agreed to exportation. This flow of prisoners into the colonies included women and children, as well as adult males. In England, both private companies and legal officials were authorized to apprehend and transport poor, law-violating persons to the colonies. In the colonies, such “kidnapped” persons were sold to masters to be used as servants and workers. Once in the colonies, kidnapped servants and workers were at the mercy of their masters and endured much brutality and oppression since there was little legal oversight of such relationships (Christianson 1998; DeMause 1974; Musick 1995). In 1646, Massachusetts passed the Stubborn Child Law, which provided for taking vagrant children into custody; they were to be held in jail or almshouses until they could be placed as apprentices. The Stubborn Child Law was adopted by other colonies and became, until the late 1800s, the legal standard for treatment of poor American children. Children’s rights were considered unimportant. Fathers and masters had total legal control of their children (Schorsch 1979; Tiffin 1982). During the 1700s, it is estimated that one in four immigrants to colonial America from England was a convict (Christianson 1998). The Irish, French, Spanish and Dutch also sent large numbers of convicts to America. The practice of exporting criminal law violators to colonial America is called “penal slavery.” Later in American history, this practice is resurrected in the form of prison work gangs contracted out by prison officials to work for the state or private interests.

In 1619, a Dutch man-of-war arrived at a Virginia port and sold to the colonists 20 persons stolen from West Africa. Those first African Americans were held in bondage until 1661 and then proclaimed by law to be slaves. Mass slavery was practiced in North America until 1862. Many English ships transported a mix of slaves, indentured servants and criminal law violators. When, in 1776, the Continental Congress outlawed the importation of foreign slaves, a number of Southern states began programs to breed their own. By 1790, the Southern population was 35 percent African American. By 1850, there were approximately 3 million African American slaves living and toiling in North America (Turner et al., 1984). Slavery in America was a d...