{"id":29216,"date":"2017-07-13T09:59:06","date_gmt":"2017-07-13T13:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/?p=29216"},"modified":"2023-03-23T14:55:17","modified_gmt":"2023-03-23T18:55:17","slug":"prisons-and-jails","status":"publish","type":"egp_essays","link":"https:\/\/philadelphiaencyclopedia.org\/essays\/prisons-and-jails\/","title":{"rendered":"Prisons and Jails"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the late 1700s, on the heels of the American Revolution, Philadelphia emerged as a national and international leader in prison reform and the transformation of criminal justice practices. More than any other community in early America, Philadelphia invested heavily in the intellectual and physical reconstruction of penal philosophies, and the region\u2019s jails and prisons reflected these evolving principles. Throughout the 1800s, global and local observers looked to Philadelphia\u2014particularly the Pennsylvania system of solitary confinement pioneered at Eastern State Penitentiary\u2014as they modeled penal practices in their communities. By the late twentieth century, however, Philadelphia led the nation not in reform, but in rates of incarceration.<\/p>\n

\"a
This Pennsylvania Prison Society membership certificate from 1855 features Eastern State Penitentiary and describes the innovative Pennsylvania System of Prison Discipline, a strict solitary confinement system advocated by the society. (Library Company of Pennsylvania<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Local holding and correctional facilities\u2014jails\u2014emerged as the colonies\u2019 populations grew and local economies developed. Philadelphia erected its first jail\u2014essentially a well-fortified box-like room, seven feet by five feet\u2014in late 1682 or early 1683 at the corner of Second and High (Market) Streets. Officials constructed a succession of several small jails in the near vicinity over the next forty years, including a brick prison, fourteen feet wide and twenty feet long, on High Street in 1695. A keeper lived in half of the building. A few years later, it was deemed inadequate. Around 1720, a stone prison and workhouse opened nearby on the corner of Third and High Streets. The prison portion of this facility housed debtors, runaway apprentices, and untried prisoners. The workhouse held those convicted of theft, vagrancy<\/a>, and disorder.<\/p>\n

Still, incarceration was used sparingly in colonial America. While criminal codes called for imprisonment for crimes such as bigamy and dueling, incarceration was typically reserved for those awaiting trial or sentencing. Penalties for those found guilty included fines or restitution, or corporal punishments such as branding or whipping. Capital punishment was meted out for a range of crimes, including blasphemy, kidnapping, and rape. As the colonies and their populations grew, officials made use of forts and blockhouses to house lawbreakers.<\/p>\n

In Pennsylvania, William Penn<\/a> (1644\u20131718) ushered in new legislation that reflected his Quaker<\/a> values, including an almost total disavowal of capital punishment. In 1682, the province of Pennsylvania banned the death penalty for all crimes except murder and treason, while other colonies that emerged in the same era continued to enact much stricter criminal codes. Though Penn\u2019s 1682 body of laws, known as the \u201cGreat Law,\u201d included fewer capital offenses, it still demanded shameful corporal punishments and prison time: stealing livestock warranted thirty-nine lashes and banishment; swearing merited five shillings or five days in jail; sodomy and bestiality cost the forfeiture of one-third of one\u2019s estate, whipping, and six months in the house of correction.<\/p>\n

West Jersey Mirrors Pennsylvania<\/h3>\n

Criminal codes in the colonial province of Quaker-dominated West Jersey<\/a> mirrored the milder punishments enacted in Pennsylvania, which varied sharply from the rigid codes of Puritanical East Jersey and New England. In West Jersey, criminal law protected the accused from undue punishments: no accused person could be convicted except by a jury of his neighbors, the accused could reject as many as thirty-five jurors before going to trial, and conviction could only occur upon the sworn testimony of two reputable witnesses. Still, corporal acts\u2014whether the death penalty, branding, or whipping\u2014encompassed nearly all punishments in East and West Jersey, which merged into a unified New Jersey in 1702. Because of the predilection for physical punishments, New Jersey had little need for penal institutions beyond small local jails, and there was no central prison administration during the colonial era.<\/p>\n

\"A
Walnut Street served many purposes across multiple sectors of government during its six decades. From its opening in 1776 until it closed in 1835, Walnut Street Jail operated as the county jail of Philadelphia. From 1790 until 1818, it also operated as Pennsylvania’s only state prison. (Library of Congress<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Overcrowding, corruption, violence, and bribery ran rampant in Philadelphia\u2019s early jails. The stone prison earned the nickname \u201cschool for crime\u201d and \u201cseminary of vice.\u201d Administrative control of the jail rested with the local sheriff, who extorted money from prisoners, sold liquor from a well-stocked bar, and withheld food and other necessary goods. Individuals\u2014regardless of sex, age, or crime committed\u2014mingled indiscriminately. Officials ordered the building of a new facility in 1773, and this \u201cNew Gaol,\u201d known as the Walnut Street Jail, opened in 1776. The old stone jail closed in 1784 and was demolished the following year. Despite the larger quarters, the Walnut Street Jail hosted the same debauchery as previous jails. (The jail keeper operated a tavern<\/a> in his previous job.) A 1787 grand jury<\/a> reported that \u201cthe prison seems to them to be open, as to the general intercourse between the criminals of the different sexes; and that there is not even the appearance of decency.\u201d Scandals plagued other local jails. Chester County<\/a>\u2019s house of correction, opened around 1725, was neglected within a few decades of its opening. An applicant for the position of jail keeper wrote: \u201cthe person last appointed [keeper] . . . having absconded from his residence therein . . . the workhouse has for a considerable time past been very ill kept.\u201d Even as jails became attached to county courthouses\u2014public facilities charged with the high-minded task of facilitating justice\u2014the improprieties of local houses of correction continued into the 1800s. In 1888, the New Jersey State Board of Health condemned the Camden County Jail \u201cas a disgrace to our common civilization and a menace to the health of the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prompted by the scandals of vice-ridden jails and the inhumanities of public punishment and spurred on by post-Enlightenment thinkers such as British prison reformer John Howard<\/a> (1726\u201390), a group of prominent citizens formed the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons (later renamed the Pennsylvania Prison Society<\/a>) in 1787. The group, comprised of thirty-seven individuals from the city\u2019s elite civic and political circles, including physician Benjamin Rush<\/a> (1746\u20131813), politician Tench Coxe<\/a> (1755\u20131824), statesman Benjamin Franklin<\/a> (1706\u201390), and Episcopal bishop William White<\/a> (1748\u20131836), advocated for prisoners\u2019 rights, as well as the restructuring of correctional spaces. The Prison Society shunned a corrupt criminal legal system and grotesque public punishments in favor of a rational, humanistic\u2014and newly private\u2014correction of the spirit. The group drew on Howard\u2019s ideas that safe and decent jail spaces\u2014and thus, true rehabilitation\u2014could only be ensured by segregation of individuals by class of offense. In April 1790, the society\u2019s lobbying paid off: a new law mandated solitary confinement at the Walnut Street Jail and called for the erection of a new \u201cpenitentiary house\u201d at the jail for \u201cthe purpose of confining therein the more hardened and atrocious offenders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walnut Street Prison, the Country\u2019s First<\/h3>\n

With this new law, the Walnut Street Jail became the Walnut Street Prison<\/a>\u2014the country\u2019s first state prison. With this designation, the distinction between a jail and a prison became clearer: jails came to house individuals awaiting trial or sentencing, along with those convicted of misdemeanors, minor offenses that typically carry a sentence of one year or less, while prisons house individuals convicted of felonies, more serious crimes that demand longer sentences. The Walnut Street Prison incarcerated convicted offenders from every part of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania\u2014a practice never before attempted in the fledgling United States. New Jersey soon followed suit. It began construction on its first state prison, in Trenton, in 1797 and opened it in 1799. The inscription over its front door read, in part: LABOR, SILENCE, PENITENCE, THIS PENITENTIARY HOUSE . . . THAT THOSE WHO ARE FEARED FOR THEIR CRIMES MAY LEARN TO FEAR THE LAWS AND BE USEFUL. Delaware did not establish a state penal facility until well into the twentieth century, opting instead to send adult offenders to county facilities. Though some regional correctional philosophies emerged, consistent penal practices across the colonies and in the early republic remained elusive.<\/p>\n

\"a
Eastern State Penitentiary\u2019s vaulted ceilings and skylights were strategically designed to invoke a churchlike atmosphere. Eastern State was the first prison to practice solitary confinement on a large scale, and it introduced the concept of \u201cpenitence,\u201d or true regret, as a penal philosophy. (Photograph by M. Fischetti for Visit Philadelphia<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Untidy and experimental at first, Philadelphia\u2019s prisons nearly perfected the separation of individuals in jails and prisons based on sex, age, and type of offense by the 1820s. The early experiment of solitary confinement at Walnut Street Jail inspired them to push for a prison where this penal practice could be implemented on a large scale. The first such prison, Eastern State Penitentiary<\/a> admitted its first prisoner, Charles Williams (b. ca. 1809), in October 1829. Eastern State\u2019s founders believed that in isolation, prisoners would reflect on their crimes and grow penitent; access their inner goodness and shun future criminal activity; and cease to corrupt or be corrupted by criminal associations in overcrowded jails. Prisoners spent twenty-three hours a day alone in their cells; they had two half-hour breaks for outdoor exercise in small yards attached to each cell. Prisoners ate, slept, and labored in their cells. Though internationally admired for its novel design and methodology, Eastern State\u2019s use of solitary confinement drew criticism almost immediately after the prison opened. The British author Charles Dickens<\/a> (1812\u201370), who visited Eastern State in 1842, claimed that prolonged isolation would inspire troubling mental health consequences. Outside observers found evidence of psychosis, anxiety, and depression among the prison population, but Eastern State officials remained vigilantly committed to the solitary system, at least publicly.<\/p>\n

Eastern State\u2019s architect, John Haviland<\/a> (1792\u20131852), and the prison\u2019s Quaker exponents wielded wide regional influence. Haviland was drafted to design New Jersey\u2019s second state prison in Trenton, which opened in 1836. Built on a radial plan, it also imposed the Pennsylvania system of solitary confinement. In Philadelphia, Moyamensing<\/a>, the county facility at Eleventh and East Passyunk Avenue built to replace the Walnut Street Prison, also employed the Pennsylvania system of separate and solitary confinement\u2014in its case, for individuals awaiting trial, along with those serving short sentences. Moyamensing remained the major hub for those facing and serving misdemeanor charges from its opening in 1835 until a second county facility, Holmesburg, opened in 1896. While Moyamensing remained open until 1963, Holmesburg, in northeast Philadelphia, remained open until 1995. Built as a solitary confinement prison, Holmesburg\u2019s radial plan and castlelike stone walls mirrored Eastern State\u2019s architectural aesthetic. Like Moyamensing, it held men and women who were awaiting trial or serving short sentences. As county facilities, Moyamensing\u2019s and Holmesburg\u2019s populations were more transient\u2014though larger, in terms of sheer numbers\u2014than the convicted felony population of Eastern State.<\/p>\n

Abandoning Solitary Confinement<\/h3>\n

Eastern State did not officially abandon the philosophy of solitary confinement until 1913\u2014more a veneer at that point\u2014when prisoners were allowed to congregate for worship, sports, and other activities. Overcrowding forced the eventual construction of eight additional cellblocks, wedged between existing structures on the prison\u2019s ten-acre plot of land. Outdated and expensive, Eastern State closed in 1970, and most prisoners were transferred to Graterford<\/a>, in Montgomery County, which was built largely by prison labor and opened in the late 1920s as Eastern State\u2019s \u201cfarm branch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"a
Holmesburg Prison opened in 1896 in northeast Philadelphia and operated until 1995 and was beleaguered by skirmishes, power struggles, and violence throughout its history. Despite shuttering in 1995 and years of architectural decrepitude, Philadelphia officials used Holmesburg to house overflow prisoners as recently as 2013. (PhillyHistory.org<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the mid-twentieth century, after American prisons moved to congregate models, Philadelphia became known for its diagnostic and classification services. In the 1950s, state prison systems became more professionalized, with formal guard trainings and new correctional entities; Pennsylvania established the Bureau of Corrections in 1953, and Delaware created the State Board of Corrections in 1956. Beginning in the early 1970s, the national prison population grew steadily due to a series of policy decisions: longer prison sentences and mandatory minimums, new laws and enforcement techniques, and increased reliance on prisons as a punishment for all crimes.<\/p>\n

From 1790 to 1970, Philadelphia was home to a state prison and was known as the most important locality of penal pioneering in the country. The landscape of prisons changed drastically over the course of those centuries\u2014and in the years that followed. Because of increased incarceration rates, the number of state prisons in Pennsylvania grew from seven in 1970 to twenty-four in 2017. By the early twenty-first century, the state was also home to dozens of additional local jails, federal prisons, and immigrant detention facilities. Many Pennsylvania prisons and jails operated over their capacity. To ease overcrowded conditions, advocates lobbied for a range of reforms: more lenient sentences, the end of cash bail, and modernized facilities.<\/p>\n

By 2015, the era of mass incarceration had prompted a bipartisan coalition of legislators to push for sentencing reform and the reduction of the prison population. Yet in 2017 the United States continued to have the highest incarceration rate in the world\u2014with 25 percent of the world\u2019s prisoners but just 5 percent of the world\u2019s population. Once a trailblazer in prison reform, a pioneer in both prison architecture and philosophy, by 2017 Philadelphia had the highest incarceration rate of any large jurisdiction in the country, with about 810 per 100,000 people in jail\u2014making it one of the most incarcerated places in the world.<\/p>\n

Annie Anderson<\/b><\/a> is the manager of research and public programming at Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site and the coauthor, with John Binder, of <\/i>Philadelphia Organized Crime in the 1920s and 1930s (Arcadia Publishing, 2014). She received her M.A. in American Studies from the University of Massachusetts Boston.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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