ABSTRACT

Prisons in the United States are an integral component of punishment within the United States' correctional system. When an individual violates social norms and/or law to an extent that it causes disruption or harm, a desire to punish that person is, in part, reflexive. While community corrections are now the dominant form of punishment, prisons have maintained convention in the US criminal justice system. The creation of the American penitentiary arose in the late eighteenth century as a response to crime and prison reform, coupled with limitations of other methods of punishment. The Walnut Street Jail became home to the first penitentiary and the establishment of the Pennsylvania System. Within the penitentiary, inmates were to be separated from other prisoners and occupy their time with hard, manual labor. The Elmira Reformatory is most often associated with the reformatory era of imprisonment in the United States; however, there was already a foundation of reform.