Introduction to Corrections

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Introduction to Corrections
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WHO ARE OFFENDERS
Mild encouragement
Mild discouragement
Strong encouragement
Strong discouragement
law
law
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Redress of Wrongs

• Retaliation
• Blood Feud (vendetta)
• Victim or victims family started to accept goods
  or money instead of blood
• Atonements for wrongs by payment to appease the
  victims family became known as lex salica
• Payment based on the injured persons rank and
  position in the social group

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Fines and Punishment

• Lex salica started to mutate into our present
  fines and punishment as the tribal elders and
  kings became involved in the process
• Wrongdoers could choose to stay away from the
  proceedings (that was their right)
• If they refused the sentence imposed they were
  considered to be outside the law of the
  tribe.thereby the word OUTLAW

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Early Codes-

• Babylonian and Sumerian Codes
• Eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth (Moses)
• Lex Talionis
• This principle goes as back far as 1250 B.C. to
  the book of covenant compiled for King Hammurabi
  of Babylon
• The Hammurabic code, as it became known , is
  known as the first serious attempt to control
  social interactions
• In the Babylonian code there were over two dozen
  offenses that called for the penalty of death

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Early Codes-(cont.)

• Some scholars believe that the punishment applied
  to slaves and bond servants were the origin of
  the punishment applied by later law to all
  offenders
• Punishment was synonymous of slavery
• Shaved Head
• Hard labor in the great public works
• Life in chains
• Loss of citizenship (civil death)
• Property confiscated
• Wife declared a widow, eligible for remarry

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Early Codes-(cont.)

• Punishment was very related to sin.
• If society believed a divinity had been offended
  the punishment was harsher and longer in order to
  appease the gods
• Even the ten commandments, if you study them,
  were intended to make offenders punishment
  accepted to both society and God

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Early Codes-(cont.)Roman and Greek

• Emperor Justinian of Rome (483-565 A.D.) wrote
  his code of laws---aimed at matching punishment
  with the crime
• Around this time the scales of justice that are
  used as a symbol of justice appeared
• Justinian code were the foundations of most of
  Western Worlds legal codes
• Draco, ruler of Greece (621 B.C.) provided the
  same penalties for citizens as well as slaves.
  Penalties were so harsh that it was said that
  they were written in blood and not in ink
• Greece first society to allow any citizen to
  prosecute the offender in the name of society
  (public interest)

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Early Codes-(cont.)The Middle Ages

• The church became very powerful
• Reformation was viewed as a process of religious
  not a secular, redemption
• Sinner had to pay two debts (1) to God, (2) to
  society.
• Trial was substituted by an ordeal.
• Ordeals- guilt and innocence was determined by
  placing offender in a series of painful tests.
  The belief was that those innocent would emerge
  unscathed, but the guilty would suffer and die

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Early Codes-(cont.)The Middle Ages

• The church expanded to include other areas which
  were not previously included and they are still
  in some modern codes
• Sexual activity was only for the purpose of
  procreation ----otherwise was a sin-a law
  violation
• Heresy and witchcraft were also unaccepted
  conducts
• Punishment for these sins or law violations
  were very severe, and were intended to save the
  sinner from Satan
• This was the period of the famous INQUISITION,
  that used vicious torture to obtain confessions
  and repentance from the sinners

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THE CHURCH BELIEVED THAT PEOPLE HAVE FREE WILL
AND THEY CAN CHOOSE RIGHT OR WRONG.
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Most Common Forms of Punishment

• Death (Capital Punishment)
• Mutilation/Torture
• Corporal Punishment
• Fines
• Public Humiliation
• Forfeit of Property
• Imprisonment
• Transportation
• Banishment

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Punishment (Cont.)

• Torture was often used to obtain a confession
  from the accused
• Many innocent then were sentence to death
• Mutilation was used to match the crime to the
  punishment
• Thiefs hand was cut off, liars tongue ripped out
• Rapists genitals were removed
• Public humiliation was used in early America
• Public nature
• Offenders were placed in the pillory with Head
  and hands fastened into a locked frame

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DETERRENCE

• The extensive use of death penalty and public
  punishment was intended to have a deterrent
  effect on other potential wrongdoers
• We have not been very successful to show that
  deterrence indeed works

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Emergence of Secular Law

• The problem with drawing law that apply to man
  and human was that many Christian philosophers
  believed that law was made in heaven.
• Thomas Aquinas (13th Century)
• clarified this by breaking into
• Four components
• Lex Eterna (Eternal Law)
• Lex Naturalis (Natural Law)
• Lex Humana (Human Law)
• Lex Divina (Divine Law)

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Emergence of Secular Law (cont.)

• Great conflict existed between the church and the
  kings
• In those days the church and the state were
  united
• Some believed that it
• was important to maintain
• separation between the church
• and the state
• It was heresy ---many died such as
• Sir Thomas More---he also had pointed
• out that punishment could not prevent
• crime

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Early Prisons

• Early on imprisonment was used to hold the
  offender while authorities decided what
  punishment to impose.
• Prison was not the punishment but the placed they
  went to receive their punishment.

First prison that we have knowledge of is the
MAMERTINE PRISON which was a vast system of
primitive dungeons built under the main sewer of
Rome in 64 B.C.
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Early Prisons (Cont.)

• During the middle ages, castles, fortresseswere
  built very secured to keep raiders from coming
  in.
• After gunpowder was discovered, such security was
  lost and these facilities started to be used to
  keep people in
• The Christian church used sanctuary or asylums to
  place wrongdoers in seclusion and give them time
  to repent, and do their penitence.

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Workhouses

• Bridewell a workhouse for the employment and
  housing of Londons riffraff was created in 1557

• It was very successful that soon similar houses
  were being built in every county in England,
  Holland and all over Europe

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BUT some problems existed No food, No
classification, no medical attention and sanitary
conditions were deplorable (jail fever?
Typhus) By the 1800s these facilities had
deteriorated that conditions were inhumane.
These people were out of sight, out of mind.
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The Age of Enlightenment Reform

• The events of the 1800 century also brought out
  some of the best thinkers.
• They brought out the need to recognize humanitys
  essential dignity and imperfection. Some of
  them
• C. Montesquie Voltaire C. Beccaria
• J. Bentham J. Howard W. Penn

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The Early Thinkers

• Montesquieu Brought to public attention the
  abuses of criminal law.

Voltaire got involved in a number of trials
where he challenged the old ideas of corporal
punishment, torture and justice
Cesare Beccaria the founder of the Classical
school of Criminology wrote an essay on Crimes
and Punishment
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• "Torture is a sure means to absolve robust
  villains and condemn weak innocent men""The law
  makes you suffer because you are guilty, you
  could be guilty, it wants you to be guilty"
  Cesare Beccaria

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Beccarias Principles

• 1- The basis of all social action must be the
  utilitarian conception of the greatest happiness
  to the greatest number
• 2- Crime must be considered an injury to society,
  and the only rational measure of crime is the
  extent of that injury
• 3- Prevention of crime is more important than
  punishment---which is only justifiable under the
  supposition that it helps prevention to prevent
  crime people must be educated.
• 4- Secret accusations and torture should be
  abolished. The accused should be given the right
  to present evidence that exonerates him

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Beccarias Principles

• 5- The purpose of punishment should be deterrence
  and not social revenge - --punishment should fit
  the crime no capital punishment
• 6- Imprisonment should be used more but
  confinement conditions must improve separating,
  males from females youth from adults Serious
  offenses from no so serious.

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Early ThinkersJohn Howard

• When he became a sheriff he was appalled by the
  conditions he found in the hulks and gaols and
  pressed for legislative change.
• He visited prisons and jails in other European
  countries and found similar problems as in
  England
• He documented the conditions of the prisons in a
  report State of prisons

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Early ThinkersJohn Howard (Cont.)

• As a result of his work, parliament passed The
  Penitentiary Act which consisted of four
  principles
• Secure and sanitary structures, systematic
  inspection, abolition of fees and a reformatory
  regime
• These principles were very difficult to implement
  at that time due to public indifference

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Early ThinkersBentham and the Hedonistic
Calculus

• Early reformer of the British Criminal Law system
  late 1800s early 1900s
• Strongly suggested a graduated system of
  sanctions
• He maintained that the main objective of an
  intelligent person was to achieve maximum
  pleasure while receiving the least amount of pain
  (Hedonistic Calculus)
• He applied this concept to CJ reform

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Early Correction Houses

• House of Corrections and workhouse are now
  considered synonymous.
• These were places for most type of misdemeanants.
  (Serious offenders were receiving more serious
  penalties).
• These places were not considered penal
  institutions but a place for training and care of
  poor people.

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Gaols

• Gaols were places were offenders were kept until
  they paid huge fines. It was like a pre-trial
  detention were they were kept indefinitely (gain
  their liberty by paying extortion money)
• Sanitary conditions of these facilities were
  deplorable which gave rise to Typhus (jail fever)
  that spread over the confined population and
  prisoners were blamed for the disease and not the
  conditions of the facilities.

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Transportation

• One of the forms of punishment was banishment
• Originally the offender was cast into wilderness
  where he would not survive the conditions or the
  wild beasts.
• As the economic conditions in Europe worsen as a
  result of the break of feudalism the number of
  imprisonable crimes increased to the point that
  there were not sufficient prisons
• To control overcrowding offenders were shipped to
  America

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Controlling Overcrowding

• Overcrowding was also controlled by using
  abandoned, unusable transport ships that were
  anchored in rivers and harbors (hulks).
• This was supposed to be a temporary measure which
  lasted until 1858, a practice that had begun in
  1776
• Conditions were worse here than any other
  previously discussed facilities
• No classification, no sanitation, flagellation
• California used hulks in the 19th century

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Early Cellular Prisons

• Jacques Vilain, an administrator and
  disciplinarian in Belgium was appointed to head
  the MAISON DE FORCE at GHENT
• He developed a system of classification
• If any man does not work he does not eat
• In Rome we find the first institution designed to
  correct incorrigible boys (Hospice of San
  Michele)
• Doses of scriptures and hard work to correct the
  boys

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William Penn In America

• The founder of Pennsylvania and leader of the
  Quakers
• Quakers were the engine behind penal reform in
  this country which also spread to Italy and
  England.
• They were influenced by the ideas of Beccaria and
  Howard

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The Great Law -The Quaker Philosophy- More
Humane-

• Hard labor more effective punishment than death
  for serious crimes
• Capital punishment eliminated except for
  premeditated murder
• Other crimes treated according to the
  circumstances
• The new law did away with most religious offenses
• House of Corrections was used for hard labor
• (not just to wait for the punishment).
• This reform did not last long
• Replaced by the English Anglican Code-gt Harsher
  punishment

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The First American Correctional Institution

• Early on few approaches were used Hulks, mine
  shafts (Connecticut), none specifically
  designated for long term confinement.

• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has the honors of
  creating the first true correctional institution
  in America (the Walnut Street Jail)

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The Walnut Street Jail

• Based on the Quaker philosophy of William Penn
• All prisoners were to be bailable
• Those wrongfully imprisoned could recover double
  damages
• Prisoners free as to fees, food and lodging
• Land and goods of prisoners liable for
  confiscation and double restitution to injured
  parties
• All counties were to provide houses to replace
  pillory, stocks and the like

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• This system became known as the Pennsylvania
  system
• Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush pushed this
  new approach, influenced by the ideas of Beccaria
  and Montesquieu
• Solitary confinement without work to allow
  offenders to reflect on their behavior and allow
  them to change.
• This system became the model to imitate even
  though crowding made all reforms difficult to
  implement and ultimately the Walnut Street Jail
  was a failure (old ways)

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You need to build a correctional System

• 1- What would be the main philosophy?
• 2- What are some Principles you consider
  essential for a correctional system to work
• 3- How are offenders treated?
• 4-How would the system be organized?
• 5- What kind of programs would be available?
• 6-What do you expect to be the results of your
  correctional system?