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America's first prison
The Eastern State Penitentiary is seen as the America's first penintentiary. Unlike the prison of later years, this prison started off as a noble deed dreamed up by Benjamin Franklin. This prison was also one of the first to dabble in techniques like Solitary, trying to keep them in isolation so that they become reflective of themselve backfired and resulted in most of the prisoners going crazy. -
First trial of Solitary confinement
As mentioned earlier, Solitary confinement was treated as first as a sort of an adult time out, prisoners were given large sums of time by themselves to reflect on their misdeeds, but most of the time the solitary confinement drove them mad. later on prisons started using solitary confinement as a punishment knowing fully what it does to a person and is even still in use today. -
the Opening of Alcatraz
Alcatraz is the most infamous prison in America. It started out as a Military prison, then in 1963, it changed into the prison we know today. The famous prison held what the prison system deemed as the most disruptive inmates and had an unheard of 1 guard to every 3 prisoners ratio. The prison ended up closing in 1963 due to lack of funding and is now a famous tourist destination and San Francisco landmark. -
Japanese internment camp
A branch of American history that is either overlooked or mostly forgotten. The Internment of hundreds of thousands of innocent people is one of the most heinous acts America has ever committed. The only Crime that these people committed was being of Japanese. This truly is one of the heaviest blows to justice America has ever blown -
San Quentin opened
San Quentin was the first privately contracted Prison in america. The first private warden regularly ignored prison guards and used the prisoners almost like slaves. when word of the conditions at San Quentin reached the government, they retook the Prison and put it under state control. -
Reagan's war on drugs makes prison population skyrocket
When Ronald Reagan stoked the fires of the war on drugs and putting more and more nonviolent drug law offenders behind bar, making the total increase from around 50,000 people in 1980 to 400,000 people in 1997. This war waged on drugs not only led to the practice of Private prisons and their future corruption, but they also led to the mass overcrowding in prisons. -
America's First Lethal Injection
The first lethal injection in American History was at the State Penitentiary in Texas. It was seen as much more humane than the other methods of execution Texas was using at the time. Texas led the country in executing prisoners, using anything from gas to electrocution and even hanging. -
Private prisons are seen as the overcrowding answer
in the 1980's during the war on drugs, the number of inmates soared. so the goverment turned to companies like the future CCA to take care of their prisons for them. They would run the prisons and turn a profit, then skimp some of the profit and keep it for themselve. Last year alone in 2015, they made over 1.7 Billion dollars on Private Prisons and the cofounder compared selling prisons like that of selling real estate or cars -
the Corrections Corperation of America is founded
The CCA is a corperation that was formed to help the U.S. Goverment on things like prison Overcrowding. They use their prisons to turn profits by either taking in money that the state gives them and only using portions of it on their inmates, or using labor and skimming parts of the profit and keeping some for themselves. -
Modern Private Prisons
Many people say that the new Private prison is the new form of slavery. The private prisons have an involuntary workforce of over 2 million people who don't need vacation days, compensation, and only get payed 25 cents an hour. And they can't refuse to show up to work because refusing to work will most likely end in severe punishments like Solitary confinement. In the modern prison there are even quotas that the states have to agree on to keep prisons full and if they don’t, it ends in a fine.
