2. Chapter 2
The American Prison in Historical Perspective: Race, Gender, and Adjustment

3. Penitentiaries
Women and minorities have been ignored in most historical descriptions of prisons.
Minorities have always been overrepresented.
First American penitentiary: Walnut Street Jail (1790)
Jacksonian era ( ): penitentiary emerged in numbers
Two systems – separate & congregate

4. Two Systems (1 of 2) The Separate System Walnut Street Jail
Also called Philadelphia or Pennsylvania system
solitary confinement, isolated labor
aim – penance, change of character

5. Two Systems (2 of 2) The Congregate System Auburn prison
slept in solitary cells, worked, ate and exercised together
harsh punishment
aim – penance, change of character
became the model for American prisons largely because it was less expensive
Europe adopted the separate system (arguably because it did not need labor)

6. Women and Minorities in the Penitentiary
Women and minorities not subjected to ideas of penitentiary: that penance could induce change
Warehoused
Women often in attics
Not even counts of number of African-Americans

7. The Reformatory Era (Late 1800s)
Elmira first reformatory
Men – military model; women – family model
Women’s reformatories ( ) – young, less serious offenders
Plantation prisons (in south)
White women were seldom incarcerated
Black women worked in kitchen gardens
Men were leased out

8. The Big House (Early 1900s)
No programs, hard labor, plantation prisons in South
Advances
Introduction of tobacco, abolishment of corporal punishment, internal freedom of movement
Racially segregated, overrepresentation of minorities
Women’s custodial prisons were in a wing or part of men’s prisons

9. The Correctional Institution
Emerged in 1940s and 1950s
Less brutal punishments, more privileges, boredom prevailed
Correctional institutions rarely “corrected”

10. Contemporary Prisons Race is defining element.
Violence has risen and now is declining.
Women’s prisons are evolving to become more custodial.