Chapter 10 Summary and Key Concepts

Chapter 10 explores the history, purpose, and means of the control of offenders.

Topic: Prisons: Development, Reforms, and Penal Philosophies

Early American institutions were locally controlled and imprisoned different types of offenders together.
Two reform-type prison systems emerged during the first half of the 19th century: the Pennsylvania System and the Auburn System, both emphasizing silence and penitence.
European countries developed the Irish System, which was designed not just to punish, but also to increase the inmate's success in returning to free society. The three most well-known examples were developed by Alexander Maconochie, Sir Walter Crofton, and Zebulon Brockway.
Alexander Maconochie popularized the indeterminate sentence.
Sir Walter Crofton instituted the early-release ticket-of-leave system.
In the early 20th century, work was considered useful for keeping inmates occupied, rehabilitating inmates, and offsetting the cost of incarceration.
S. prisons acknowledged rehabilitation as a primary goal around 1930.
Reasons for rehabilitation were new developments in how science treated illness and the 1931 Wickersham Commission report.
In the 1960s, inmates became politically active in demanding changes in their surroundings, and the courts began to specify inmates' rights.
The retributive era, which began around 1970 and continues to the present, features replacing indeterminate sentencing with determinate sentencing, making treatment voluntary, and the abolition of parole.

Topic: Capital Punishment

The most extreme and controversial form of control is capital punishment.
Historically, punishment by death was common, and a number of ways were devised to kill the condemned.
In the 20th century, death sentences began to be carried out with few witnesses and in the most painless way believed possible.
Arguments for capital punishment include general and specific deterrence and retribution.
Arguments against capital punishment include religious and spiritual concerns; beliefs that it does not deter; race, gender, and class issues about who is selected for death; and fear of executing the innocent.