Correctional System: Historical Setting

I suppose the problem of crime and punishment has always existed in our society. From the beginning of time society has struggled with criminals in the name of social protection. Mutilation was a common form of punishment, dating from about 1800 В. C. That form of punishment has been used practically to the present time in countries throughout the world. Branding was used to supplement flogging. Various corrections techniques were also used among them: cutting off the hands of a thief, slicing out the tongue of a traitor, gouging out the eyes of the spy, and castrating the rapist.I think these techniques are quite barbaric but they effectively prevented recidivism on the part of the offender. The first primitive societies simply killed an offender, believing that he was possessed of evil spirits. Slave kennels and galleys were common as forms of punishment in Carthage, Rome and Greece. Penal officers invented punishment hard work. Sometimes the ears of a prisoner were nailed to beams. It is known that the concept of punishment changed radically with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Prior to this time, keeping a person in prison was not economically feasible. The government did not want to spend the money to house and feed prisoners. The revolution, however, created a demand for manpower and convicts became the answer. The government found it economically advantageous to sentence convicted prisoners to jail for a period of time as punishment likewise, employers found it much less expensive to hire convict labour than free men. These practices of industry also caused governments to realize that incarceration itself was punitive without the addition of special forms of punishment. Accordingly, the rise of industry and using convict labour increased the number of criminal laws that provided for serving different periods of time as punishment. As the laws increased, the jail system and houses of correction developed. The economic factor has been evident in the jail system from the earliest times. Early wardens bought, leased, or inherited their right to serve in that office. These officers also had fee rights over prisoners. They could charge entrance and discharge fees. They took fees for putting on and taking off leg irons, and fees for special rooms and food. Other services from brothels to bear also were available. Logically the English penal system was the precursor of the US system. Neither had a central authority. Jailers, through the purchase of fee rights, were free to extort, intimidate, and coerce inmates in any manner to exact fee incomes. The jails were poorly administrated. There was a lack of prisoner segregation and an overabundance of constant noise, lewdness, and fights to the death. Public disinterest permitted unheated conditions in the coldest weather. Bad conditions from general brutality by the guards to malnutrition and typhus caused extremely high mortality rates. It was then. And only think how far the correctional system has moved in its development! Bogomolov V. V., a private of Interior Service a first-year cadet of Perm Institute of the Federal Penal Service, Perm Источник: ПИФСИН Материалы по теме