1. Chapter 7
Prisons Today:
Change Stations or Warehouses?
McGraw-Hill/Irwin © 2013 McGraw-Hill Companies. All Rights Reserved.

2. History of Prisons in America
 Penitentiary – The earliest form of large-
scale incarceration; punished criminals by
isolating them so they could reflect on
their misdeeds, repent and reform
 Created by the Pennsylvania Quakers
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3. Pennsylvania system
 The Pennsylvania system – The first historical
phase of prison discipline; it involved solitary
confinement in silence instead of corporal
punishment
 Conceived by the American Quakers in 1790
and implemented at the Walnut Street Jail
 First used by the Walnut Street Jail in
1790.
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4. History of Prisons in America -
Continued
 The Auburn system - The second historical
phase of prison discipline; it followed the
Pennsylvania system and allowed inmates to
work silently together during the day while being
isolated at night
 Implemented at New York’s Auburn prison in
1815, where, eventually, sleeping cells
became congregate and restrictions against
talking were removed
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5. Stages of Development
 Penitentiary Era (1790-1825)
 Mass Prison Era (1825-1876)
 Prison is a place for punishment
 Reformatory Era (1876-1890)
 Focus on education
 Industrial Era (1890-1935)
 Inmates worked in prison industries
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6. Industrial Era
 Public accounts system – the warden purchased
materials and equipment and oversaw the
manufacture, marketing, and sale of prison-
made items
 Contract system – the prison advertised for bids
for the employment of prisoners, whose labor
was sold to the highest bidder
 Convict lease system – a prison temporarily
relinquished supervision of its prisoners to a
lessee, who either employed the prisoners within
the institution or transported them to work
elsewhere in the state
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7. Industrial Era - Continued
 State use system – prisoners manufactured
products consumed by state governments
and their agencies, departments, and
institutions
 Public works system – prisoners were
employed in the construction of public
buildings, roads, and parks
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8. Prison Industries Legislation
 Hawes-Cooper Act (1929) – banned the
interstate shipment of prison-made goods
 Ashurst-Sumners Act (1925) – prohibited
carriers from accepting prison-made goods
for transportation
 Also mandated the labeling of prison-made
goods
 Sumners-Ashurst Act (1940) – forbids the
interstate transportation of prison-made
goods for private use
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9. Stages of Development –
Continued
 Punitive Era (1935-1945)
 Emphasized strict punishment and
custody
 Alcatraz
 Treatment Era (1945-1967)
 Medical model - A philosophy of
prisoner reform in which criminal
behavior is regarded as a disease to
be treated with appropriate therapy
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10. Stages of Development –
Continued
 Community-Based Era (1967-1980)
 Zebulon Brockway opened the Detroit House of
Corrections in 1861 for released women
 Offenders can be rehabilitated by using community
resources
 Warehousing Era (1980-1995)
 Indeterminate sentencing is replaced by determinate
sentencing
 Incapacitation
 Just-Deserts Era (1995-present)
 Focus on punishment
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11. Prison Population
 On January 1, 2010, 1,613,740 adults were
under the jurisdiction of state and federal
prison authorities
 State and federal prison authorities—208,118
held in federal prisons and 1,405,622 held in
state prisons.
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12. Prison Population
 For the first time in nearly four decades, state
prison populations declined largely because of
the movement in evidence- based corrections
that started over a decade ago and more
recently because of the economic downturn that
made policymakers and taxpayers more aware
of the financial price of incarceration.
 Overall prison populations fell in 24 states from
2008 to 2009
 Today 1 in every 143 U.S. persons is under the
jurisdiction of a state or federal prison.
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13. Private Prisons
 On January 1, 2010, 32 states and the
federal system held 129,336 prisoners in
107 privately operated prisons, up from
77,854 inmates in 101 private prisons in
2000.
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14. Inmates By Sex
 Women represent the fastest growing
population in correctional facilities
 Over the past decade, the number of women
in prison has grown from 68,468 to 114,420
 This represents an increase of 66% and
constitutes 7 percent of the overall
population
 The rate of incarceration for women was 67
per 100,000 women, compared with 949 per
100,000 for men
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15. Inmates by Sex
 On January 1, 2010, California, Texas,
and the federal system held 30 percent
of all female inmates.
 The majority of women in prison are from
a racial minority, young, poor, uneducated,
and have a history of past physical or
sexual abuse
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16. Inmates By Race
 Minorities comprise about 20 percent of
the U.S. population, but make up 63
percent of all incarcerated offenders.
 Almost 60 percent of the persons in prison
for violent offenses on January 1, 2010,
were minority, and 65 percent were in
prison for drug offenses.
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17. Inmates by Race
 Explanations for the overrepresentation of
minorities in prison include involvement in
a disproportionate share of criminal
activity which results in their greater rates
of punishment; racial profiling and racism
in the criminal justice system; faulty data
collection; and social problems.
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18. Additional Factors
 On January 1, 2010, 52 percent of state
prisoners were held for violent offenses,
up from 46 percent in 1995.
 The percentage of state prisoners held
for property offenses dropped from 23
percent in 1995 to 18 percent in 2008,
and the percentage held for drug
offenses dropped from 22 to 18 percent
across the same time period.
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19. Additional Factors
 In 2000, 56 percent of the nation’s prisoners
were between 18 and 34 years old, 40 percent
were between 35 and 54, and 4 percent were
over 55.
 In 2010, for the third straight year, the
representation of 18- to 34-year-olds had
decreased to 50 percent, the presence of 35- to
54-year olds had increased to 45 percent, and
the presence of inmates 55 and older had
increased to 5 percent.
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20. Additional Factors
 On January 1, 2010, 52 percent of state
prisoners were held for violent offenses,
up from 46 percent in 1995. The
percentage of state prisoners held for
property offenses dropped from 23
percent in 1995 to 18 percent in 2008.
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21. Additional Factors
 Immigration, weapon, and other public
order offenders made up approximately 35
percent of the federal prison population at
the beginning of 2010, up from 18 percent
in 1995.
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22. Classification
 The process of subdividing the prisoner
population into meaningful categories to match
offender needs with correctional resources
 External classification - Interinstitutional
placement of an inmate that determines an
inmate’s security level
 Internal classification - Intrainstitutional
placement that determines, through review of an
inmate’s background, assignment to housing
units or cellblocks, work, and programming
based on the inmate’s risk, needs, and time to
serve
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23. AIMS Personality Checklist
 Alpha I and Alpha II inmates – most likely to be a
threat to the safety and security of the facility
 Predators
 Sigma I and Sigma II inmates – unlikely to be
assaultive, but pose other management
problems such as disregarding direct orders and
disrupting the orderly operation of the institution
 High risk of being victimized
 Kappa inmates – least likely to present
management problems
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24. Advantages Of Classification
 Separating inmates by risk level and
program needs puts extremely aggressive
inmates in high security
 Minimizes misclassification, thus promoting
a safe environment for inmates and staff
 More accurately places inmates and more
effectively deploys staff
 Enhances prison security by reducing
tension in prison
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25. Unit Management and Faith-
Based Honor Dorms and Prison
 Unit Management System: A method of
controlling prisoners in self-contained living
areas and making inmates and staff
accessible to each other
 Faith-based initiatives range from prisons
and jails offering religious services, one or
more housing units within a prison that are
faith-based, entire prisons built around the
faith-based concept, to faith-based parole
and reentry initiatives
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26. Work Assignments
 Meaningful work programs are the most
powerful tool prison administrators have
for managing crowding and idleness, two
factors which can lead to disorder and
violence.
 Three types:
 Operational assignments within the
institution
 Community projects
 Prison industry
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27. Justifications For Prison Industries
 It generates a safer prison management
and better prison discipline through the
reduction of idleness
 It is cost-efficient
 It contributes to job training and
rehabilitation
 It increases an inmate’s financial
responsibility
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28. Federal Prison Industries
 Established in 1934
 Meaningfully employs inmates
 Provides job skills training
 Operates under the trade name UNICOR
 Inmates require high school diploma or GED
to earn maximum wage rate
 Statistically, parolees with UNICOR
background are 24% likelier to succeed
outside of prison
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29. Education Programs
 A significant number of prisoners cannot
read or write well enough to function in
society
 An estimated 40% of state prison inmates,
27% of federal inmates, 47% of inmates in
local jails, and 31% of probationers have not
completed high school or a G.E.D.
 CEA’s Three-State Recidivism Study
compared 1,373 participants and 1,797
nonparticipants and found an overall
significant correlation between participation
in education and lower rates of recidivism
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30. Education
 An estimated 30 to 50 percent of inmates have a
learning disability compared with 5 to 15 percent
of the general adult population.
 Correctional educators face the challenge of
motivating inmates to involve themselves in
educational programming because they know
that programming inside correctional facilities
greatly influences what happens once inmates
are released.
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31. Health Care
 Estelle v. Gamble – deliberate
indifference to serious medical needs
constitutes cruel and unusual
punishment
 Did not mandate unqualified access
to health care
 California, with the nation’s largest
correctional health care system, spent
20 percent ($974.5 million) of the
state’s corrections budget on inmate
health care in 2004.
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32. Principle of Least Eligibility
 The requirement that prison conditions
—including the delivery of health care—
must be a step below those of the
working class and people on welfare
 This was held constitutional
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33. Prison Organization
 All 50 states and the Bureau of Prisons operate
prisons
 So do four local jurisdictions in the U.S.:
 Cook County (Chicago)
 Philadelphia
 New York City
 Washington, D.C.
 Institutional managers use either rated,
operational, or design capacity data to set
population accommodation limits
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34. Continued
 On January 1, 2010, the federal prison
system was operating at 36 percent over
capacity. Overall, state prisons were
operating between 1 percent and 40
percent over capacity.
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35. Capacity
 Rated Capacity - The number of beds or
inmates a rating official assigns to an institution
 Operational Capacity - The number of
inmates that a facility’s staff, existing programs,
and services can accommodate
 Design Capacity - The number of inmates that
planners or architects intend for the facility
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36. Operation Costs
 On average, states spend $22,650 a year to
incarcerate one offender.
 Annual operating cost per inmate vary based on
the differences in the cost of living, variation in
employees salaries, climate, and inmate to staff
ratios are the reasons for the variation among
the states.
 More than 40 states have passed legislation that
allows their jails to charge fees.
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37. Justice Reinvestment
 The practice of reducing spending on
prisons and investing a portion of the
savings into infrastructure and vivic
institutions located in high-risk
neighborhoods.
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38. Security Levels
 Maximum – or close/high security
prison - A prison designed, organized, and
staffed to confine the most dangerous
offenders for long periods
 It has a highly secure perimeter, barred cells,
and a high staff-to-inmate ratio
 It imposes strict controls on the movement of
inmates and visitors, and it offers few programs,
amenities, and privileges
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39. Security Levels - Continued
 Medium security prison - A prison that
confines offenders considered less dangerous
than those in maximum security, for both short
and long periods
 It places fewer controls on inmates’ and visitors’
freedom of movement than does a maximum-security
facility
 Has barred cells and a fortified perimeter
 The staff-to-inmate ratio is generally lower than in a
maximum-security facility, and the level of amenities
and privileges is slightly higher
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40. Security Levels - Continued
 Minimum security prison - A prison that
confines the least dangerous offenders for both
short and long periods
 It allows as much freedom of movement and as many
privileges and amenities as are consistent with the
goals of the facility
 It may have dormitory housing, and the staff-to-
inmate ratio is relatively low
 Open institution - A minimum-security facility
that has no fences or walls surrounding it
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41. Federal Bureau Of Prisons
 Established in 1930 with 13,000 inmates
 Operates 116 confinement and community-
based correctional institutions.
 The BOP employs more than 37,500 people
nationwide.
 The BOP budget for 2011 is $6.1 billion, the
same as for 2010 unless Congress and the
president provide a new funding amount
through an appropriations bill.
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42. Federal Bureau Of Prisons
 Institutional security classifications
include:
 Minimum-security federal prison camps
 Low-security federal correctional
institutions
 Medium-security federal correctional
institutions
 High-security U.S. penitentiaries
 Administrative institutions
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43. Does Incarceration Work?
 There is no strong or consistent relationship
between the incarceration rate and the crime
rate.
 In June 2002, the Bureau of Justice Statistics
reported on the recidivism of 272,111 prisoners
discharged from 15 states and tracked for three
years after their release in 1994. 74 Overall, 68
percent were rearrested within three years and
25 percent were resentenced to prison for a new
crime. More than two-thirds of the recidivism
occurs within the first year after incarceration.
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