Prison Timeline

The Penitentiary Era

(1790-1825)

The Penitentiary Era

The philosophy imprisonment begun by the Quakers, heavily imbued with elements of rehabilitation and deterrence, carries over to the present day. The primary example of this is the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia.

The Mass Prison Era

(1825-1876)

The Mass Prison Era

One of the first large prisons to abandon the Pennsylvania model was the New York State Prison at Auburn. This style of imprisonment, which came to be known as the Auburn system, featured group workshops rather than solitary handicrafts and reintroduced corporal punishments into the handling of offenders.

The Reformatory Era

(1876-1890)

The Reformatory Era

A system of graded stages required inmates to meet educational, behavioral, and other goals. Schooling was mandatory, and trade training was available in telegraphy, tailoring, plumbing, carpentry, and other areas. Even though the reformatory was not a success, the principles is established remain important today.

The Industrial Era

(1890-1935)

The Industrial Era

Industrial prisons in the northern United States were characterized by thick, high walls; stone or brick buildings; guard towers; and smokestacks rising from within the walls. These prisons smelted steel, manufactured cabinets, molded tires, and turned out many other goods for the open market. The South used inmates to replace slaves who had been freed during the Civil War.

The Punitive Era

(1935-1945)

The Punitive Era

The punitive era was a lack-luster time in American corrections. Innovations were rare, and a philosophy of "out of sight, out of mind" characterized American attitudes toward inmates.The term stir-crazy grew out of the experience of many prisoners with the punitivera's lack of educational, treatment , and work programs. In response, inmates created their own diversions, frequently attempting to escape or inciting riots.

The Treatment Era

(1945-1967)

The Treatment Era

The treatment era was based on a medical model of corrections - one that implied that the offender was sick and that rehabilitation was only a matter of finding the right treatment. Therapy during the period took a number of forms, many of which are still used today. Some of these include group therapy, drug therapy, neurosurgery, etc.

The Community-Based Era

(1967-1980)

The Community-Based Era

Beginning in the 1960s, the realities of prison overcrowding combined with a renewed faith in humanity and the treatment era's belief in the possibility of behavioral change to inspire a movement away from institutionalized corrections and toward the creation of opportunities for reformation within local communities. The transition to community corrections was based on the premise that rehabilitation could not occur in isolation from the free social world to which inmates must eventually return.

The Warehousing Era

(1980-1995)

The Warehousing Era

Evidence shows that many judges came to regard rehabilitation programs as failures and decided to implement the just deserts model of criminal sentencing. The just deserts model built on a renewed belief that offenders should "get what's coming to them." It quickly led to a policy of warehousing serious offenders for the avowed purpose of protecting society - and led also to a rapid decline of the decarceration initiative.

The Just Deserts Era

(1995-2012)

The Just Deserts Era

In the midst of a prison construction boom, a new philosophy based on the second prong of the justice model - that is, an emphasis on individual responsibility - became the operative principle underlying many correctional initiatives. The new philosophy was grounded squarely on the concept of just deserts, in which imprisonment is seen as a fully deserved and proper consequence of criminal and irresponsible behavior rather than just the end result of a bankrupt system unable to reform its charges.

The Evidence-Based Era

(2012-Present)

The Evidence-Based Era

The new era in corrections, the evidence-based era, is built around the need to employ cost-effective solutions to correctional issues. Evidence-based corrections represents a rational science-based approach to corrections because it employs social scientific research in determining what practices to implement.