Prison reform

Prison reform is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, improve the effectiveness of a penal system, or implement alternatives to incarceration. It also focuses on ensuring the reinstatement of those whose lives are impacted by crimes. In modern times the idea of making living spaces safe and clean has spread from the civilian population to include prisons, on ethical grounds which honor that unsafe and unsanitary prisons violate constitutional (law) prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment. In recent times prison reform ideas include greater access to legal counsel and family, conjugal visits, proactive security against violence, and implementing house arrest with assistive technology. Prisons have only been used as the primary punishment for criminal acts in the last few centuries. Far more common earlier were various types of corporal punishment, public humiliation, penal bondage, and banishment for more severe offenses, as well as capital punishment. All of which occur today. The concept of incarceration was presented circa 1750 as a more humane form of punishment than the aforementioned corporal and capital punishment. They originally were designed as a way for criminals to participate in religious self-reflection and self-reform as a form of penance, hence the term penitentiary. Prisons contained both felons and debtors—the latter of which were allowed to bring in wives and children. The jailer made his money by charging the inmates for food and drink and legal services and the whole system was rife with corruption. One reform of the sixteenth century had been the establishment of the London Bridewell as a house of correction for women and children. This was the only place any medical services were provided. The first public prison in Europe was Le Stinche in Florence, constructed in 1297, copied in several other cities. The more modern use grew from the prison workhouse (known as the Rasphuis) from 1600 in Holland. The house was normally managed by a married couple, the 'father' and 'mother', usually with a work master and discipline master.