Development of Corrections

Development of Corrections

Women's prisons were not always the way it is today. Back in the 16th century, when penitentiaries were first introduced to the criminal justice world, men and women were held in the same facilities. Even though they were not allowed in the same cell, they were not separated at recreational time that they had during the day. They were also supervised by males, and so the sexual assault that was possible was very high and likely. These days women prisons are similar to men's, but with the supervision of women as well.

It was in the early half of the 1800's that juveniles should not be locked up in the same penitentiaries as adults. The three basic arguments were the penitentiary regimen was too hard on tender youth, they would learn bad habits from older criminals and be embittered by the experience of confinement and adolescents could be reformed if they were diverted early enough into institutions

designed specifically for people their age(Foster, 2006). If they were not separated the youth would have only been introduced to the crimes of the elderly, with no lessons of what life could be like.

The prison labor held two valuable ideas of it. First, it focused prisoners' time and energy productively, keeping them busy in unpleasant, sometimes traumatic, surroundings (Foster, 2006). Second, they turned out goods that were sold to recoup the prison's operating cost. The ideal was to turn a profit to operate "in the black" (Foster, 2006). However, many private businesses were in direct

competition with the contract and public account systems and strongly opposed prison-made goods being sold on the open market; it was bad for their business (Foster, 2006), which is why it died down.

References

Foster, B. (2006). Corrections: The fundamentals. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall