During the Revolutionary War we saw the biggest transition form corporal punishment to imprisonment as punishment. Historically there were two varieties of imprisonment in European cultures. Jails, which traditionally were only used for political/religious offenders and debtors and workhouses. Workhouses were (Barnes) “utilized almost solely to repress vagrants and paupers and were not open for the receptions of felons.” It was the West Jersey and Pennsylvania Quakers who took these two traditions and helped develop our modern penal system. They combined the workhouse model and the jail model with the understanding that “imprisonment should not be in idleness but at hard labor”. A few decades later it was determined that this institution should “be in cellular separations” creating our modern prison system which is now several centuries old.
As the public displays of punishment became less popular in the 18th century there was a desire for a “modern and just” system of punishment. The systems created from this desire are nearly identical to our current system despite the fact that Barnes was writing about this in 1921, it’s been nearly a hundred years and the issues that Barnes brings up with the “modern” systems of his time are still issues to this day.
Following the Civil War a new form of oppression was created specifically to avoid the 13th amendment. Although slavery was deemed unconstitutional there was an important caveat that many throughout the country would abuse. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” It didn’t take long for Southern states during and after Reconstruction to begin creating an archaic system of laws and regulations with the sole purpose of imprisoning Black Americans. An entire industry was created to arrest, convict and lease out laborers for local businesses. The businesses would pay the prisons and those imprisoned would be given nothing. The history of convict leasing is difficult to think about but I think it’s an important explanation for why such racial disparities exist. After the Civil War the vast majority of those imprisoned were Black Americans in the South, this created a new norm in our culture where Black Americans would be connected to criminality. This allowed White Americans to further disconnect from those who were suffering and encouraged a system of Jim Crow to continue to this day.
While the number of people incarcerated did jump during the War on Drugs in the 80’s today only 1 in 5 people are incarcerated because of a drug related offense. And less than 8% of the incarcerated population is currently in a private prison. These are two of the most common focal points for reform and they wouldn’t even impact 25% of the incarcerated population. Even if you released all of those people at once the U.S. would still have the highest incarceration rate in the world. This countries history of imprisonment is woven deep into the fabric of our society and this system is far beyond repair.
With all this in mind I argue that the 8th amendment has been violated by all forms of imprisonment throughout this countries history, it is cruel and unusual to lock someone in a box for their actions without ever attempting to help them reform or help change the structures that lead to them being imprisoned. Our entire prison system is unconstitutional and various authors have been pointing out these issues for centuries. That’s why I think that reform is no longer an option and an entirely new system needs to be created.
Prison Abolition 