The Prison System in the 18th, 19th and beginning of the 20th century was solely based on punishing
So, you might think the prison system today is harsh. Think again. In the 19th century the US and Britain prison systems were based on punishing prisoners to the point that they wouldn’t commit a crime again in fear of landing in prison.
How bad was it?
First let me tell you about this one
The Eastern State Prison
The eastern state prison was a 40,000 square meter prison, and was for a long time the largest building in the US.
The Eastern State Prison’s system was basically based on completely isolating the prisoner, so for his whole sentence he would not see nor communicate with another inmate ever.
* When the prisoner was first shoved to his cell, a mask was put over his head to prevent him from seeing another prisoner.
* The walls were extra thick to prevent communication by knocking on the wall
* When the prisoners arrived they were all given a number, which was the only name they were allowed to go by
* The prisoners received food through a hole in the wall to prevent catching an eye contact with the guard
And you think just that is bad? Because there’s more.
* In many prisons the prisoner had to pay just to sleep on a bed and sometimes also to be released.
So if you didn’t have any money, you could be just left inside the prison for a couple more years after your sentence.
* The prison food was truly awful.
Often the prisoners just received nothing more than a little bit of porridge, gruel or soup for every meal.
* The work was most often completely meaningless
This was a very common tactic in prisons, to rob the prisoner of the joy that comes from a job well done, because, well, he hadn’t really achieved anything at all.
Some of the work prisoners did included:
The Crank
Prisoners had to turn a crank up to 10,000 times per day, with absolutely no purpose
The Penal Treadmill
Basically stairs that whenever you stepped up, it turned, so to avoid falling of you just had to keep stepping
Breaking rocks with a sledgehammer
Now, you might think they needed smaller rocks for making roads or building something but that was not the case. It on purpose had no meaning.
Credit : Quora
Picture Credit : Google