ABSTRACT
The current system of imprisonment is relatively new in the West and in countries of the global South. Although many students of criminal justice believe that the state imprisoned people in previous societies as punishment for a crime, this system first emerged in the late 1800s as a reform measure within the emerging capitalist United States. It soon expanded across the globe as a measure of social control, along with Western Europe’s colonization of Latin America, Africa, and Asia. In Africa, former slave forts were converted into prison dungeons to contain people who resisted colonial taxation or were accused of committing other crimes against the state (theft, murder, and so on). Prisons, as the main institution of punishment, have been with us for only 200 years, yet there is a growing movement in the world to abolish them altogether. It is indeed difficult to imagine a society that would completely replace their Western penal code—replete with police, surveillance, and prison apparatus—with traditional or transformative caring communities.
