Forms Of Confinement

Decent Essays
Confinement was not used as a means of punishment in Europe until the 1600-1700. (Bohm and Haley, 2011). It was not brought to the United States until 1800. It was formally used to detain someone before trail, hold prisoners awaiting other forms of punishment, force payment of debt, punish slaves, quarantine disease and spiritual reformation.
Before confinement was implemented as a form of punishment, offenders were punished more for embarrassment and humiliation. Not only for punishment for the crime, it was to humiliate them and deter other offenders. Punishment was directed toward the person and property, it was to inflict pain and confiscate property. Corporal punishment forms were in the form of fines, beheading, flogging, branding, placed in stocks, hanging and stoning.
…show more content…
The other is transportation, this is the where they are taken to another colony to live. These two forms of punishment were put in place before confinement.
Europeans started using confinement as a means of punishment by using offenders in workhouses, to teach them discipline and work habits. Their labor was expected to pay for the upkeep of the facility and also earned a profit (Bohm and Haley,

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Proponents at that point insisted that the Pennsylvania system would involve only mild disciplinary measures, reasoning that isolated men would have neither the resources nor the occasion to violate rules or to escape. But from the outset Eastern State's keepers used corporal punishments to enforce order. Officials used the "iron gag," a bridle-like metal bit placed in the inmate's mouth and chained around his neck and head; the "shower bath," repeated dumping of cold water onto a restrained convict; or the "mad chair," into which inmates was strapped in such a way so as to prevent their bodies from resting. Ultimately, only three prisons ever enacted the costly Pennsylvania program.…

    • 140 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A prison is built to house persons for longer periods of time following conviction for a more serious offense. Since as early as back in the 1500s there have been imprisonment facilities. However, it was not until the year 1790 that the United States of America created its first prison in Pennsylvania which instituted solitary confinement for incarcerated convicts. The offenders that were sentenced to hard labor were moved indoors to an inner block of solitary cells in Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Jail. Most eighteenth century prisons were simply large holding pens.…

    • 232 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Unfortunately, no one could ever analyze the difference in results between these two forms. This is because punishment has not been the only aspect of community that has drastically changed in 200 years. No one can guess what the criminal rate would be if whipping and burning was still the main means of punishment. Would police abuse this power? Would criminals commit the same acts if it meant public pain and embarrassment?…

    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Transforming The American Prison System Charles Dickens’ American Notes chronicles his visit to the United States in the mid 1840s. Dickens spends the majority of this nonfiction work exploring the young institutions of the United States of America. During this time period, two separate major prison systems began development. The two prison system plans, named after the cities where they were located— the "Philadelphia" plan in Pennsylvania and the "Auburn" plan in New York, both share a common thread, solitary confinement. Solitary confinement— the isolation of a prisoner in a separate cell as a punishment— is a uniquely American invention based on the Quaker theology.…

    • 1914 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Wrongdoers In The 1800s

    • 902 Words
    • 4 Pages

    At the beginning of the 1800s, there were many debates about which type of punishment should be carried out on wrongdoers that cannot follow or abide by the law. The one thing that these debaters decided on was that the most criminals (with the exception of executions) needed to be sent to isolated facilities where their criminal behaviors could be corrected; these facilities are known as penitentiaries. In the 1800s, there were two main types of these penitentiaries – the Pennsylvania and the New York. Although the Pennsylvania and the New York systems were built on the same concept of reprimanding criminals, they both used different build blocks in which they used to correct criminals.…

    • 902 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    New York Slave Codes

    • 971 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Slaves were not treated as humans, but like property. Slaves were owned, traded, and sold. There were certain codes, laws, that the slaves had to follow. If the slaves misbehaved or attempted to escape to the north, they would be punished. Some punishments would lead to grotesque wounds and laceration.…

    • 971 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Solitary confinement is defined as a form of imprisonment where an inmate is separated from other inmates and/ or human contact for over 20 hours a day for days, weeks, months, or even years. This practice has been used widely throughout the United States for many decades in an effort to separate highly dangerous inmates from causing harm to other inmates or themselves. Whether or not solitary confinement is useful in the prison system is up for debate but the effects it leaves on the inmates is a concern for many states. By taking a look at what solitary confinement is, examining the phycological effects of the imprisonment, and discussing the legality of the punishment we may be able to draw a better conclusion on whether or not this practice should still be used in the modern day prison system. Solitary confinement can be described as a form of punishment in a prison system where inmates are sent to a private room with no windows and no outside contact with other humans or inmates except prison guards.…

    • 1237 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Cage hanging or gibbetting was only done in medieval Europe, in fact it is actually found hanging in Europe's cities and towns it has bee Europe's landscape till 18th century till 21st century the cage would be either made out of wood or iron this was served as a simple punishment to starve the criminals to death or sometimes they will face elements but this punishment would only be done if you caused thievery.…

    • 74 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    the idea of solitary confinement came around when the guards and the flagellator noticed that flogging the men was not teaching them to stop doing what they were doing but to become stronger and resist the pain and not to flinch or show that they were in pain, they thought that by putting the men by themselves would make they reflect on what they had done and make that realise that it was wrong. When you arrived at solitary confinement you would be taken through the rules an then given new set o clothes and a badge with a number on it when you were in there you were only called by this number and you were not allowed to talk or communicate with anyone. Marjory of people who went into solitary confinement came out not quite right, some would even say crazy. There are stories of a man who when he came out of solitary confinement thought he had spiders crawling all over him all the time, this sort of thing would have happened all the time because people simply can't go without human…

    • 1009 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Frederick Douglass Essay Frederick Douglass was born into slavery, then escaped and became a free man. He decided to write this text to present his idea that all free men are created equal, and that slaves are not ⅗ of a person. In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass violence is key feature. The violence changes the reader’s view of slavery, and describes how slaves were abused.…

    • 981 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During the time of the Civil War, slaves lived very difficult times. Slaves had very harsh lives because they did not have a say in what would happen to them, what kind of punishments they would receive, or what job they would do. Slaves were treated very badly and did not have a say in what would happen to them. [5] Numerous slaves were sold, however before they could be purchased they were subjected to assessments utilizing the most personal and humiliating examinations.…

    • 967 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Confinement In Prison

    • 871 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The article that I chose to read was “Solitary Confinement and Mental Illness is the U.S prisons: A Challenge for Medical Ethics” by Metzner and Fellner. The main point that is consistent throughout the article is that solitary confinement has negative psychotic effects on prisoners especially those with pre-existing mental illness. These effects including anxiety, depression, and even paranoia as would be expected of being confined in a small cell completely alone. In the article it strongly advocates that there needs to be adjustments to jail’s policies and how as a nation we should not be letting a prisoner’s basic human rights be denied. It also talks about physicians specifically should have an active role in advocating for their “patients”…

    • 871 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Higher class individuals were sentenced to less extreme punishments, such as loss of status, fines, banishment, or a private execution; however, executions were only sentenced to them for severe and less common crimes. On the other side, lower class individuals were often punished with public beatings and executions. These sentences were punishments by both embarrassment and torture (Black 897). The standard public punishments were flogging, decapitation, crucifixion, and burning. For especially offensive crimes, the criminal would be sewn into a sack with a live snake, rooster, dog and monkey and then thrown into the ocean (Aldrete).…

    • 822 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    8th Amendment Cruel

    • 1248 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The principal concern of the drafters of the Constitution was to exclude torture and further barbaric ways of punishment. Given the age at the time the Eighth Amendment was drafted and ratified, one of its clear goals was to bar torture. Under the restrictions levied by the Constitution, penalties for crimes could include fines or incarceration, but not unreasonably painful or physically hurtful consequences such as branding or whipping, which were both common practices in the 1700’s. The Court asserted that punishments of torture, and all similar actions of unnecessary cruelty,…

    • 1248 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays