John Howard Research Paper

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Purpose and History The first form of punishment was based on the English criminal codes. It was established as a form of responding to crime. Corporal and capital punishment were used and it was carried out in public with the intent of discouraging individuals and the community from committing further crimes. Minor offenses such as drunkenness, slander, or stealing were punished by whipping at the town center whipping post or placement in stocks and pillories. Often time’s rotten vegetables or even rocks were thrown at the offender, to aid in the punishment. Offenders were ridiculed in front of the townspeople, in hopes that this would help them change their criminal ways. Offenders were often branded as a punishment and as a way of labeling…show more content…
Jails were used to hold those awaiting trial or those who had been convicted and were waiting for their corporal or capital punishment to be carried out. These jails were in horrible condition and poor men, women, and children all lived together in filth, with little food or sanitary conditions. The fee system was an early bail system that was used by the rich; it prevented them from going to jail. During the 1700s John Howard, an English reformer made many changes to the way jails were operated. As a result of his efforts, the Penitentiary Act was passed in 1779. This act provided secure and sanitary structures, systematic inspections, abolition of fees for basic services, and a reformatory regime. He wanted offenders to reflect on their sins, rather than simply being punished brutally. These ideas influenced the development of penitentiaries in the United…show more content…
The Quakers, who settled Pennsylvania, believed that the criminal codes were both inhumane and inefficient in that judges often did not follow the criminal codes because they did not want to inflict more severe punishments on relatively minor offenders. Under the leadership of Penn, the Quakers replaced the current criminal code with a new one. The new criminal code included the abolition of capital punishment for all crimes other than homicide, the substitution of imprisonment at hard labor for bloody corporal punishments, the provisions of free food and lodging to inmates, and the replacement of the stocks and pillory with houses of detention. When Penn died in 1718 the Quaker code was repealed. Dr. Benjamin Rush, the leader of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of the Public Prisons, revived the Quaker code in the late 1700s. The first prison was established in the United States in 1790 by the Philadelphia Society. A wing of the Walnut Street Jail was converted to house sentenced offenders as an alternative to corporal punishment. A regimen was created that involved hard work and doing penance for their offenses. Prisoners were given work to do during the day in their cells and at night they were encouraged to read the Bible and do penance. The jail
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