Why Have Penitentiaries Anyway?

The Author | Nov. 3, 2022 | Samuel G. Dawson

[FNU LNU]

Why Have Penitentiaries Anyway?

Most people realize that the court and penal systems in North America are seriously broken and must be fixed, yet contemplating doing away with penitentiaries sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Barely 200 years ago, an experiment began which has cost us untold billions of dollars. Just last year, this experiment resulted in 1.4 million adults incarcerated in federal and state penitentiaries (a figure which has quadrupled since 1980) at a cost of nearly $40,000 each.

As Alan Elsner pointed out in a recent Washington Post article, 2.2 million people are engaged in catching criminals and putting and keeping them behind bars, and "corrections" has become one of the largest sectors of the U.S. economy, employing more people than the combined workforces of General Motors, Ford and Wal-Mart, the three biggest corporate employers in the country. In many "prison town" counties, the number one employer is the Department of Corrections. This is a staggering expense of over $50 billion, an amount that increases by additional billions for each year of the last 25 years of explosive prison growth. As the prison population ages, the taxpayer is paying for medical procedures he can't afford for himself, and the victims of these criminals realize no compensation at all.

Few realize that the first penitentiary in the world was founded in Philadelphia in 1792. Jails had always existed for the purpose of holding the accused until trial, after which the guilty would pay a fine, make restitution to the victim, be banished, be executed, etc. However, the concept of warehousing criminals to cause them to repent was entirely new.

Imagine a criminal justice system where penitentiaries didn't even exist, but where a person paid for his crimes rather than having society pay to keep him incarcerated.

One such nation existed. If you stole someone's property, say a sheep, and were caught with the animal in your possession, you repaid the victim with two sheep, but you didn't go to a penitentiary. The victim also got a financial settlement, satisfying the desire for victim restitution in our time.

If you sold the stolen sheep, thereby being more involved in the crime, you paid the victim four sheep.

If you committed a capital crime, (murder, rape, kidnapping, etc.) you paid with your life, but you didn't go to a penitentiary. Such facilities didn't exist in this nation. They were not needed.

Such a system would completely do away with our newest growth industry, penitentiaries, and restore the victim of crime financially.

I'm not going to tell you where I got the idea for this system, but it's from a reliable source. Of course, it will never happen here because a powerful lobby has grown up around the prison system that will fight hard to protect the status quo. Correction officers have formed powerful labor unions, and their financial contributions to our politicians will easily outweigh the will of the people. I know, I know, I'm such a young man to be so cynical.

Samuel G. Dawson

[FreedomPoster]

Richard Pryor: PRISON
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txp8B4ek_kk
Richard Pryor talks about making a movie in prison, murderers, and racist groups.

Worth the 6m.

[Renfrew]

Banishment would be the easiest.

We should conquer some crap part of the world like Liberia.

Anyone convicted of a felony gets a one way ticket across the Atlantic.

[mythenjoseph]

Over the years I ended up doing county jail time (OUI didn’t have 10 k to buy my way out of it)I worked every day in the bakery and it knocked off 1 day for every 40 hours worked. Some of the people in the jail , even the trustee section I was in had people that were just not good. I am VERY glad we have jails and penitentiaries ...There are a lot of people in the U.S. that are devoid of empathy or any moral compass and seem to be consumed by evil or fallen into addiction which warps there sense of right and wrong. I am glad we have jails.

[aimhigh]

However, the concept of warehousing criminals to cause them to repent was entirely new.

Really??? In Genesis, Joseph was jailed for years.

[aimhigh]

Back in the day, those who would now be given 20 years or life, were executed. They executed horse thieves. Rome used prisoners to row war ships. They were warehoused in those ships for years and sometimes decades.

[JoJo354]

Getting rid of penitentiaries wouldn’t work because there are too many squeamish people that are against the death penalty.

[ApplegateRanch]

Thank you, Quakers!

I was taught that this was there idea; that it was more humane to incarcerate, and ‘rehabilitate’ them, than to use many of the in vogue punishments of the day.

As for ‘banishment’, we can’t even banish the illegal invaders!

[bobbo666]

I thought long ago that the best solution to the recidivist trash is Coventry. Pick a few hundred square miles in some horrid western state (e.g., Utah, Nv, etc). Wall it with mines. Chopper in condemned with a couple days supply of food. And, that is it.
Live or die. No longer society’s problem.
Anyone escaping is fair game to anyone with a rifle. The only rule on that is that heads must be put on sticks along the “wall”.

[GaryCrow]

It's estimated that about 70,000 people were executed under Henry VIII's rule. The population of England during his reign was about 3 million so he executed about 2% of the population. It obviously didn't take much to get yourself hanged or beheaded in those days.

I don't know what the solution is but what we're doing now isn't working. Today's prisons are just training grounds for criminals. If they aren't hard core expert crooks when they went in, they are when they come out.

[cpdiii]

I like the concept of prison farms. Sitting in a cell alone without contact with other prisoners is in effect psychological punishment. Let them out just to work. It works. Working in the hot sun or cold where one has human contact is a reward.

I oddly do not approve of long sentences for those that can be reformed. The first sentence should be harsh in the extreme within the limits of not torture. It should be short. It should deprive the prisoner of little contact with other prisoners except for work. It should instill in his mind I never want to be here again. If you violate again and caught one must resign himself to the farm for years.

[Mister Da]

How will a dirt poor 17 year old car thief pay for 2 cars? The victims will get little or nothing most of the time.

[Pennsyltucky Boy]

There may be a better solution… in PA we could just send them all to Bradock. I understand the town is a paradise since Fetterman rescued it. I’m sure all the convicted felons would thrive there!