Essay about Prison Reform In America - 1880 Words

Prison quot;Reformquot; in America In the essay quot;Prison quot;Reformquot; in America,quot; Roger T. Pray points out the much attention that has been devoted to research to help prevent crimes. Showing criminals the errors of their ways not by brutal punishment, but by locking them up in the attempt to reform them. Robert Pray, who is a prison psychologist, is currently a researcher with the Utah Dept. of Corrections. He has seen what has become of our prison system and easily shows us that there is really no such thing as quot;Prison Reformquot; In Roger Prays essay we see how our prison system has come to where we are at now. He shows how history of prisons worked and how our basis of the prison system came about over the†¦show more content†¦They felt that the brutal criminal punishment was irreconcilable with their Christian beliefs. So in 1786, they persuaded the Pennsylvania legislature to limit the death penalty to murder, treason, rape and arson. It was then that all other criminals would have to be imprisoned for up to ten years. As the population grew and more people where getting sent to prison instead of being executed the prison began to get crowded. The Walnut Street prison, which was the first prison, built in 1790 was a prototype for other prisons to be built over the next 30 years. By the year 1817 the prison began to deteriorate. Changes and overcrowding of prisoners in one room pushed Pennsylvania legislature to build more prisons. In 1817 two more prisons where built, one in eastern and one in western Pennsylvania. They built these prisons with separate cell areas, so each inmate could be kept alone, eliminating all the problems of congregate living. The idea of having separate cells did not originate in America. quot;Of course the notion of forcibly confining people is ancient and there is extensive evidence that the Romans had a well-developed system for imprisoning different types of offenders.quot; (Meskelly). It was the Auburn jail that added a new system to imprisonment. It was solitary confinement. At the time many criminals had mental breakdowns being locked up in one room by themselves for years. It was then that a thirty five year rivalry between Pennsylvania and New YorkShow MoreRelatedPrison Reform in America1895 Words   |  8 PagesPrison Reform in America In the essay Prison Reform in America, Roger T. Pray points out the much attention that has been devoted to research to help prevent crimes. Showing criminals the errors of their ways not by brutal punishment, but by locking them up in the attempt to reform them. Robert Pray, who is a prison psychologist, is currently a researcher with the Utah Dept. of Corrections. He has seen what has become of our prison system and easily shows us that there is really no such thingRead MorePrison Reform in the United States of America1318 Words   |  6 PagesPrison Reform in The United States of America â€Å"It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones† (Nelson Mandela, 1994). The United States of America has more people behind bars than any other country on the planet. The prisons are at over double capacity. It cost a lot of money to house prisoners each year. A large number of the prisoners are there because of drug related offensesRead MorePrison Reform : Effective And Reliable Correctional System1352 Words   |  6 PagesPrison reforms are necessary to better the conditions for prisoners to enable the creation of an efficient and reliable correctional system. 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They all have a different meaning, but, in all, they do involve with the same concepts, expectations, and ways of doing things because it deals with community, societyRead MoreThe Major Punishment For Criminal Acts1526 Words   |  7 Pagesan estimated 2338,000 individuals are in state prisons, more than 90,000 are in the federal prison, and more than 5,000 are in juvenile facilities. In the same way, more than 20,000 are in territorial prisons and military prisons, as well as local jails. By October 2013, America had the highest rate of incarceration across the globe at 718 per 100,000 people. It is equally important to note that as of December 2014, the International Centre for Prison Studies reported that there were 2, 783,689 prisonersRead MoreDorothy Dix Changed the Prison and Mental Health Systems1068 Words   |  4 Pages1800s, one woman decided that the prison and mental health systems could be improved to be kinder and more effective institutions. She saw a change to be complete in the world and made it her task to recreate the prison and mental health systems in a new and superior style. Throughout the years, prisons and mental health asylums have changed greatly, especially concerning unfair prison treatment, the reform movement, and today’s important impact. Before the reform movement, prisoners and the mentallyRead MoreThe Reasons For Why Recidivism Occurs1441 Words   |  6 Pagesplaces around the world there are prisons set up where people go after committing a crime. Now the point of prisons is to reform a person so when they come out of prison they will be a productive member of society and not the criminal they once were. This does not occur most of the time. In fact, the exact opposite has occurred so much that there is a term for it now. That term is recidivism, which is when a person goes back to a life of crime after some sort of reform. There are many reasons for why