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This page is to help me work on the article selected for my assignment in race and incarceration.
The History of the United States Prisons: An overview


 * Introduction-
 * Prisons in America
 * The use of Prisons
 * The structures as in blue prints
 * Acceptance of Prisons
 * converted prisons into other buildings

Introduction
Although early colonization of prisons were influenced by the England law and Sovereignty and their reactions to criminal offenses. It also had a mix of religious aptitude toward the punishment of the crime. Because of the low population in the eastern states it was hard to follow the criminal codes in place and which led to law changes in America. It was the population boom in the eastern states that led to the reformation of the prison system in the U.S. According to the Oxford History of the Prison, there are several points that a prison functions by "keep prisoners in custody, maintain order, control discipline and a safe environment, provide descent conditions for prisoners and meet their needs, including health care, provide positive regimes which help prisoners address their offending behavior and allow them as full responsible a life as possible and help prisoners prepare for their return to their community"

The Prisons of America
Incarcerating prisoners has been a long time idea in the history of man. U.S prisons adopted some of the ideas from history when it came to confining criminals. According to Bruce Johnston "of course the notion of forcibly confining people is ancient, and there is extensive evidence that the Romans had a well developed system for imprisoning different types of offenders" It wasn't until 1789 when reform started taking place in America. According to David J. Rothman, he suggest that it was the freedom of our independence that helped along the process of our look at reforming the law. Laws were changed in New York because they were to "barbarous and had Monarchial principles" according to Rothman. Pennsylvania laws had changed excluding the act of robbery and burglary from the punishable by death law. It remained only for first degree murder conviction. New York, New jersey and Virginia updated their capital crime list and reduced its list. But because of the reduction of capital crimes they were forced to do something for the punishment other than the capital crime offense and this lead to incarceration of longer periods of time. The very first jail that turned into a state prison was the Walnut Street Jail. This lead to uprisings of state prisons across the eastern border states of America. Newgate State Prison in Greenwich Village was built in 1796, New Jersey added its prison facility in 1797. Virginia and Kentucky in 1800 were added as well. This trend kept going in which it included Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maryland soon after.

The Use of Prisons
******* add to modern devolopment

the development of prison changed from the 1800's to modern day era. As of 1990 there were over 750,000 people held in state prison or county jails. With the development of new material and ideas the prison had changed physically to accommodate the rising population. It wasn't designed to house the amount of incarcerated people. Although the prison maintained the high wall method it added new modern technology such as surveillance, electronically monitored perimeters and changed the way prisons are operated. The change of prison operating system has lead to branching prisons off into multiple factors to meet the needs of the incarcerated population. From Norval Morris The contemporary Prison he writes "there are "open prisons"...…."weekend prisons" and "day prisons" This is not to say the change of punishment has completely changed in redevolopment of the early prison system. It still maintains social order and is moved by politics and ever changing matters.