2.1.1: The Penitentiary Era (1790s–1860s)

During the American Colonial period, corrections were heavily influenced by the English penal styles and punishment practices (Blomberg & Lucken, 2010). Despite England’s long history of using incarceration as a form of punishment, it was rarely employed for punitive purposes in Colonial America. This was primarily due to the small population of Europeans residing in Colonial America during the early colonial period, so minute a population that it would not fill a single modern-day college football stadium. Early colonialists lived in little isolated settlements with insufficient resources to incarcerate lawbreakers. Therefore, formal punishments, such as banishment and corporal punishment, which included whipping, branding, and mutilation, as well as capital punishment, were common practices.

After the American Revolutionary War, the newly formed America was determined to establish itself as a civilized society (Blomberg & Lucken, 2010). During the early 1800s, two competing penitentiary systems emerged: the Pennsylvania system and the Auburn system. The Pennsylvania system mandated that inmates remain silent and reside in their individual cells at all times (Kann, 2005). Advocates of this system argued that the time of isolation allowed inmates time to reflect on their transgression and repent. They also contended that maintaining inmates’ isolation minimized the need for discipline, thereby requiring minimal training for guards (Rothman, 1990). In contrast, the Auburn system only separated inmates overnight. However, this system enforced silence at all times, and during the daytime, inmates congregated for work, prayer, and meals. Supporters of the Auburn System claimed that its use of congregate work and smaller cells was more practical, cost-effective, and humane.

The Pennsylvania (Eastern) System

In the late 1780s, Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, alongside the Philadelphia Society and the Religious Society of Friends (also known as Quakers), advocated for more humane and rehabilitative approaches to punishment, favoring incarceration over corporal or capital punishment (Eastern State Penitentiary Task Force of the Preservation Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, Marianna Thomas Architects, 1994). By 1790, their efforts proved successful as Philadelphia legislators supported funding to transform the Walnut St. Jail into the first U.S. penitentiary. The penitentiary was designed to isolate each inmate, providing a space for reflection and penitence, hence the name “penitentiary,” derived from the Latin word meaning “repentance” or “penance.” However, the penitentiary quickly became overpopulated; this led to the approval of the construction of two new state prisons: Western State Penitentiary in Pittsburgh and Eastern State Penitentiary near Philadelphia.

Western State Penitentiary in Pittsburgh was opened in 1826, but its poor architectural design necessitated its demolition and subsequent reconstruction in 1833 (Barnes, 1927). Eastern State Penitentiary, which opened in 1829 in Cherry Hill just outside of Philadelphia, became the model for the Pennsylvania system, sometimes referred to as the Eastern system. The penological approach of the Pennsylvania system was centered on many Quaker principles, particularly hard work and rehabilitation through repentance. The Pennsylvania system introduced the practice of “silence and separation,” where inmates lived and worked in isolation and were required to remain silent at all times. The prison was designed in a radiating fashion, resembling a wagon wheel.

Robert Vaux, a member of the Philadelphia Society and a key contributor to the planning of the penitentiary, provided five core principles of the Pennsylvania system (as cited in Eastern State Penitentiary Historical Structures Report, Eastern State Penitentiary Task Force of the Preservation Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, Marianna Thomas Architects, 1994, pp. 18–19):

1. Prisoners should be treated not vengefully but in ways designed to convince them that through hard and selective forms of suffering they could change their lives.
2. To prevent the prison from being a corrupting influence, solitary confinement of all inmates should be practiced.
3. In his seclusion, the offender was to have an opportunity to reflect on his transgressions so that he might repent.
4. Solitary confinement is a punishing discipline because man is by nature a social being.
5. Solitary confinement is economical because prisoners do not need long periods of time to benefit from the penitential experience, fewer keepers are required, and the costs of clothing are reduced. The strong faith in reformation coupled with deterrence is evident.

While supporters of the Pennsylvania system were vocal about its success, within a few years, reports emerged of excessive punishment that resulted in serious injury, prisoner deaths, embezzlement, and sexual improprieties with female inmates (Thibaut, 1982). Additionally, there were concerns regarding inmate mental illness stemming from the use of solitary confinement. Ultimately, the Pennsylvania system, with its emphasis on isolation and silence, fell out of favor by the end of the 19th century due to its high cost and the negative effects of inmate isolation.

The Auburn (New York) System

The Auburn Penitentiary in Auburn, New York, opened in 1818. Unlike the isolation and silent approach of the Pennsylvania system, the Auburn Penitentiary adopted a slightly different approach. It utilized a congregate approach. While inmates still slept in isolation and were expected to maintain silence, they worked together, attended mandatory prayer services together, and ate together during the day (Foucault, 1975/1977).

One significant difference between the Auburn Penitentiary and the Eastern State Penitentiary lies in their architectural design. Instead of employing the more expensive 12′ by 7.5′ single-cell radial design, Auburn Penitentiary arranged 7′ by 4′ cells back-to-back in the center of a large building that was five tiers high. Additionally, there were designated areas for large groups of inmates to congregate for work, dining, and recreation. Unlike the Pennsylvania system where inmates both worked and slept in their large single cells, the Auburn system was designed so that inmates used their small cells solely for sleeping and spent their waking hours in other areas of the prison. This design necessitated strict scheduling, enforced through corporal punishment or even solitary confinement. Auburn’s use of solitary confinement quickly came under scrutiny and was discontinued in 1822 after multiple reports of mental illness and high suicide rates among inmates subjected to solitary confinement (Eastern State Penitentiary Task Force of the Preservation Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, Marianna Thomas Architects, 1994).

The founders of both the Auburn and Pennsylvania penitentiaries preached that convict labor would aid in reformation and even deterrence (Pillsbury, 1989). However, the penitentiary goals set forth by the founders (punishment, reformation, and social control) became compromised as administrators attempted to heighten the prisons’ self-sustainability and profit. Soon thereafter, prisons became more remunerative, using prison employment as a mechanism of control and profit, not reform. (Maier, 2018, p. 11)

In the early years of the penitentiary, the public account system was employed. In this work system, inmates performed unpaid labor by manufacturing goods in the prison that could be sold on the open market, with the revenue returning to the state. However, this shift toward the market economy had negative repercussions for businesses and workingmen, who voiced concerns about their inability to compete with free prison labor (Pillsbury, 1989). Consequently, by the late 19th century, states began transitioning away from this approach, opting instead for the more profitable contract system. In contrast to having penitentiary administrators exclusively oversee inmate labor and manufacturing, the contract system enabled private companies to pay a set fee to use prisoners for labor within the confines of the penitentiaries. These manufacturing operations were entirely supervised and managed by these private contractors.