Before the 18th century, the concept of incarcerating offenders in prisons as a means of punishment didn’t exist in American colonies. In this era, criminal offenders were held temporarily in jails until their time of trial. Only the felony offenders who saw their stay in jails extended due to the seriousness of the act committed. This didn’t means that the criminal justice in the American colonies took the offences lightly. All civil, religious, and criminal misdemeanors were undertaken by the justice system. Punishment for wrong breakers came in form of public shaming, being taken to exile or execution. However, in 1776 the British authorities banished justice system from American colonies as a form of …show more content…
The high population and the rate of crime led to poor work performance in prisons. This cycle repeated itself frequently hence causing high rate of corruption and deplorable hygiene in prison facilities. This act led the philosophers to push for more improved incarceration facilities so that the condition and health of prisoners can improve. Eventually, in 1831 Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont, the political observers from France arrived in the U.S and advocated for a more improved prisons and jails. According to their views, the prisoners had to work and labor in their incarcerated places to offset their cost of housing. This would enable them to get skills that can be useful when they leave the …show more content…
and all over the place in the world deal with the same basic queries regarding the role of punishment for offenders in their criminal justice systems: Who should be punished? How should offenders be punished? Under what conditions? For how long? Within America the number of incarcerated offenders and way of sentencing differ from state to state. Some states have large number of convicted offenders than others (Dammer and Albanese, 2014). For example, 147 per 100,000 residents in Maine are convicted as compared to 865 per 100,000 residents in Louisiana. The overall number of convicted offenders in U.S is 716 per 100,000 residents. This number is bigger as compared to other nations in the world. If we look at the Germany and Netherlands as examples, the number of convicted offenders is 79 and 82 per 100,000 respectively. However, this can be attributed to the way of arrest as the above countries have quite different ways of arresting. Furthermore, the population of people in U.S is bigger as compared to the two