May 21, 2001

1
May 21, 2001

• A Look at Prison History
• Thorsten Sellin

2
Introduction

• Assumption Punishments are designed to control
  the underclass.
• As such, prison inmates came to be viewed as
  slaves of the state.
• We now use punishments that were once only
  reserved for slaves.
• In a society where slaves existed, the punishment
  for slaves tended to be adopted by freeman sooner
  or later.

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Penal Slavery

• Penal servitude you were sentenced to a life of
  work. You became a slave of the state.
• Imprisonment insured that you would keep working.
  
• Imprisonment wasnt something unique in and of
  itself
• Imprisonment was just a necessary element to keep
  people working.
• It was not an end in itself as it is today.

4
Penal Reform Movement

• Beccaria and the Death Penalty
• Social Contract
• Common good
• Equality under the law.
• It is the duration of the punishment and not the
  intensity.
• He believed it was less of a deterrent than life
  in prison

5
Prison Reform

• The road to prison reform was very long.
• From 1800-1934, prisoners were nearly worked to
  death and housed in deplorable conditions.
• Prisons often were forced to be financially
  self-supporting.
• One way to make money was to sell convict labor.
  
• Prisoners were leased to corporations.

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Conclusions

• The goal of this paper is to illustrate that
  primitive forms of punishment are still used
  today.
• New ideas do not find easy acceptance especially
  when they concern the treatment of criminals
  (33).