Crjs220 - Pennsylvania Segregate System

Liliana Rivera

American Intercontinental University

CRJS220

November 12, 2015

Prison is meant to be a place where prisoners are supposed to repent their past actions and where they are supposed to start a new leaf in their lives. All prisons have different ways of accomplishing this reform some do hardcore solitary confinement and others like to take the rehabilitation path. Most of my paper I will talk about the Pennsylvania System and how their system was meant to be used in our modern prison systems.

 The Pennsylvania System is sometimes also called the “segregate system”. It was actively swayed by the Quakers and their firm principles of reform and repentance, sheer solitude and stillness, accompanied by very strict discipline is indispensable to this process. While being led to the cells many new prisoners wore hoods over their faces so that they would not see any other inmates. The inmates did everything alone they slept, they ate and eventually they worked alone, completely isolated. Because religion and morals were very important to the Quakers every new prisoner was giving a Bible, and often the only visitor that was allowed to see an inmate was a religious teacher. Also all convicts had to kneel down when entering their cells because the entrance to the cells was so low, it was at 4 feet and 11 inches. This concept of the prison system became very popular and started to move to the European prisons as well, but then problems begin to arise. In the United States many citizens did not agree on the methods of incarceration, the two main argument that they had was that the system cost too much money and also that inmates started getting delusional. This system started causing harm to the inmates’ mind.  They resolve this conflict with replacing the Pennsylvania system with the Auburn system which combine solitary confinement and hard labor. These systems have five general principles that they followed in order to have a successful prison system.

The first principle is “do not treat prisoners harshly but instruct them that hard and selected forms of suffering could change their lives”. This principle can be drawn back to the Constitution of the United States more specifically to our 8th amendment, which prohibits the federal government for imposing a cruel and unusual punishment to our prisoners. The second part that talks about suffering changing their lives is more connected with rehabilitation. The second main principle says “solitary confinement will prevent further corruption”. Of course there's no way to change the actions that are already made, but we can help prisoners correct the response to the action. I believe criminals are not just born criminals, they learn by their environments and through their life experiences. Solitary confinement gives criminals the skills to help and avoid past influences that contributed to them becoming criminals in the first place.