header for earthfolk.net
 

sacred sexuality

Part 1 - Pathways

A-Seeker

Table of Contents

B-Seer

Table of Contents

C-Belover

Table of Contents

Part 2 - Resources

Table of Contents

 

Prison Reform in Pennsylvania
By Norman Johnston, Ph.D.
Board Member Emertius of The Pennsylvania Prison Society PPS

Two centuries ago, Philadelphia and Pennsylvania became the center of prison reform worldwide.

To understand how this happened, one must look briefly at the early development of penal practices in William Penn’s colony. Penn, who himself had been confined in England for his Quaker beliefs, abolished the Duke of York’s severe criminal code which was in effect in other parts of British North America, where, among other offenses, the penalty of death was applied for murder, denying "the true God," homosexual acts and kidnapping. Severe physical punishments were used for what were considered lesser crimes.

Pennsylvania’s Quaker-inspired code abolished the death penalty for all crimes except murder, using instead imprisonment with labor and fines. The law did call for severe penalties for sexual offenses: "defiling the marriage bed" was to be punished by whipping plus a one year sentence for the first offense, life imprisonment for the second.

Upon Penn’s death, conservative factions in the American colony and in England reintroduced many of the more sanguinary punishments. As late as 1780, punishments such as the pillory and hanging were carried out in public. An account of an execution that year related how two prisoners "were taken out amidst a crowd of spectators–they walked after a cart in which were two coffins and a ladder, etc., each had a rope about his neck and their arms tied behin [sic] them… they were both hanged in the commons of this city [Philadelphia] abt. [sic.] 1 o’clock."

Jails up until the time of the American Revolution were used largely for persons awaiting trial and other punishments and for debtors and sometimes witnesses. In the Old Stone Jail at Third and Market Streets in Philadelphia, old and young, black and white, men and women were all crowded together. Here, as in other county jails in Pennsylvania at the time, it was a common custom for the jailer or sheriff to provide a bar, charging inflated prices to the prisoners for spirits. In Chester County, the English custom of charging for various other services was also in force, e.g. fees for locking and unlocking cells, food, heat, clothing, and for attaching and removing irons incident to a court appearance.

In 1776, Richard Wistar, Sr., a Quaker, had soup prepared in his home to be distributed to the inmates in Philadelphia prisons, many of whom were suffering from starvation at the time and even several deaths. Wistar formed the Philadelphia Society for Assisting Distressed Prisoners, but with the British occupation of the city the next year, the organization was disbanded.

Because of the rapidly growing population, a new jail was begun in 1773 on Walnut Street, behind the State House (later, Independence Hall). The new prison had the traditional layout of large rooms for the inmates. Initially, conditions were little better than they had been at the old jail. Prisoners awaiting trial might barter their clothes for liquor or be forcibly stripped upon entering by other inmates seeking funds for the bar. The result was great suffering when the weather turned cold. One estimate stated that 20 gallons of spirits were brought into the prison daily by the jailer for sale to the inmates. It was also considered a common practice for certain women to arrange to get arrested to gain access to the male prisoners.

After the peace of 1783, a group of prominent citizens led by Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush and others organized a movement to reform the harsh penal code of 1718. The new law substituted public labor for the previous severe punishments. But reaction against the public display of convicts on the streets of the city and the disgraceful conditions in the Walnut Street jail led to the formation in 1787 of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, (a name it retained for 100 years, at which time it became The Pennsylvania Prison Society), the first of such societies in the world. Members of the Society were appalled by what they learned about the new Walnut Street prison and the next year presented to the state legislature an account of their investigations of conditions and recommended solitary confinement at hard labor as a remedy and reformative strategy.

An act of 1790 brought about sweeping reforms in the prison and authorized a penitentiary house with 16 cells to be built in the yard of the jail to carry out solitary confinement with labor for "hardened atrocious offenders." Walnut Street Jail, by the same legislation, became the first state prison in Pennsylvania. Following 1790, the Walnut Street jail became a showplace, with separation of different sorts of prisoners and workshops providing useful trade instruction. The old abuses and idleness seemed eliminated, but with Walnut Street now a state prison and the population of Philadelphia increasing rapidly, it, like its predecessor, became intolerably crowded. The large rooms, 18 feet square, which still housed most of the prisoners, by 1795 had between 30 and 40 occupants each.

The Prison Society continued to urge the creation of large penitentiaries for the more efficient handling of prisoners. Partially as the result of the Prison Society’s efforts, money was appropriated for a state penitentiary to be built at Allegheny, now part of Pittsburgh. The reformers also remained convinced that in spite of the small-scale isolation cellblock at Walnut Street, that site would never prove the value of the system of separate confinement which came to be called the Pennsylvania System. Only an entire larger structure, built specifically to separate inmates from one another, would be needed.

Article continues at—PPS

 

Home | Scribe | Links | Glossary | Contact

Copyright © 1999-2014 Earthfolk™ All Rights Reserved.