ATIC UNIT 1 IP

ATIC Unit 1 IP

ATIC Unit 1 IP

Introduction

By the middle of the 18th century, the European powers had developed regular procedures to deal with prisoners of war. Since European armies were professional in nature, soldiers treated relatively well as prisoners captured during a campaign. Men who fought against each other in one war might be fighting with each other as mercenaries or recruits in the next war. European nations signed conventions for an exchange of prisoners during a conflict so each nation would want to treat its prisoners in the same manner as it would want its own prisoners treated when captured. These exchange conventions ordinarily allowed for a one-to-one exchange for enlisted men. Officers, who were given better treatment and often paroled or allowed to live outside of prisoner compounds, exchanged for individuals of equal rank or a number of lesser officers or regular soldiers at a predetermined ratio (Meranze, 2006).

Punishment of criminals underwent a significant transformation in the innovatory and early national eras. In the colonial period, the emphasis had been on open display of punishment. Individual reformation was not the object; the idea was to demonstrate to the community the consequences of breaking the law (Gilje, 2004).

Eastern Penitentiary was built at Philadelphia in 1829 to further the Quaker idea of prisoner isolation. Prisoners confined in windowless cells about eight by 12 feet with running water and toilet facilities. Each prisoner had his own "exercising yard," about eight by 20 feet, surrounded by a lofty brick wall. The walls between the cells were abundant and virtually sound proof, so that an inmate never saw another inmate, only a few guards, chaplains and an occasional pious person who came by to pray and offer spiritual advice. Needless to say, great numbers of prisoners went insane under the Pennsylvania system, but that did not stop it from becoming popular both elsewhere in the United States and around the world (Knight, 2001).

Also in 1829, a rival system, which eventually gained wider acceptance, was launched with the building of a new prison in Auburn, N.Y. The trouble with the Pennsylvania system, said the New York prison experts, was that the convicts spent too much time praying and working alone and thus could not "pay for their keep" through convict labor. At Auburn, the prisoners permitted to work together by day fulfilling convict labor contracts, but in all other aspects the isolation of the Pennsylvania system was maintained (Gilje, 2004).

Discussion

The state of Pennsylvania led the way in this reform effort. In 1786, the state legislature did away with many capital crimes and, as a step toward the new understanding of punishment, ordered that convicted criminals perform labor in public. Having convicts working in public, however, created problems. Criminals interacted with the people in the street, behaved badly, and, rather than becoming an example for others, often elicited sympathy. Benjamin Rush urged further reform. Rush wanted the criminal to be removed from society until he had transformed into a strange ...