A Brief History of the Penitentiary System

The penitentiaries of the 1800s were set up as small structures holding a limited number of prisoners who were kept isolated much of their time. These penitentiaries were very orderly and quiet.

By 1900, there were a number of population explosions within many of the major cities. These population growths caused rampant crime problems which led to the incarceration of many more prisoners. Two of the more filled prisons in America were the Ohio State Penitentiary and the Missouri Penitentiary at Jefferson City. Ohio held 2,000 prisoners in 1,800 cells and Missouri held 2,300 in 500 old cells by the beginning of the twentieth century.

The beginning of the century saw continued population growth so existing prisons began to expand. The prisons used the architectural model known as the Big House. These Big Houses were able to hold three to four times more prisoners than the old prisons.

In the 1800s, the men were used for labor but in a way that was to keep them busy and occupied. In the 1900s, the essence of the Big House was hard labor. Men and women were put to work making products that were sold to the public. Also, convicts were contracted out to businesses. With so many in prisons, prison labor intensified to a point where battles were fought in state legislatures across the country. Many complained about prison labor and its sale of prison-made products affecting those free people who were more deserving of the employment. By 1932, inmate idleness became a greater strain on the security forces. Also, with fewer products supporting the finances of the prisons, financial burdens of running the prisons were laid on the taxpayers.

It came to many people’s attention that something needed to be done to move prisoners forward out of the Big House era. The prisons’ new mission came to be rehabilitation. Over the next twenty years, the prisons used programs to reform and rehabilitate men and women prisoners. Eventually, prisons provided supervision and the necessary administrative, treatment, and related functions which became a vast network of correctional organizations that are used today to help those incarcerated belong, once again, to society.