Prior to the founding of our country, there were no prisons in colonial America.  Rather, there were jails where people accused of criminal offenses were held until tried by a court and if found guilty were then punished.  Depending on the nature of their crime, the guilty could be hanged, fined, whipped, or placed in the stockade for a period of time in full public view.  These were some of the punishments for the guilty.  Imprisonment was not at this early time a means of punishment.The transformation of the New York prison from one for the religious redemption of the prisoner, run by evangelical Christians and Quakers, to a state run prison to punish prisoners for their wrong doing began in the 1830s. Punishment consisted of hard labor and beatings and for some prisoners, solitary confinement. As an additional punishment, prisoners in work gangs were not permitted to talk with each other.

With these changes the evangelical Christians and Quakers became chaplains to help prisoners cope with the severe conditions of prison life. Further, these religious people shifted their emphasis to helping released prisoners to reenter their communities, a practice continued to the present day.

Criminal punishment became retributive rather than redemptive. In other words, it was a justice of an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth. This attitude remains to the present day. One thing that it neglects is justice for the victim of crime. For the latter who has suffered the effects of a crime seeing the criminal suffer for the crime brings small comfort for the loss that the crime has created.

With the passage of time the prison system, both federal and state, expanded. To illustrate in 1923 the US had 61 federal and state prisons. By 1974 there were 592 prisons. By 2000, at the beginning of the 21st century, there were 1023 prisons. An incentive for this expansion was economic. For economically depressed communities establishment of a new prison brought economic as well as political gain. Also, the advent of privately owned and operated prisons brought economic rewards to investors. It is said that for the latter prison bars were bars of gold. Also, large corporations have used prison laborers to enhance profits.

The US has become a world leader in criminal incarceration. With 5% to 6% of the world's population, the US incarcerates 25% of the world's known prisoners. Currently, 2.3 million US residents occupy US prisons, jails and detention centers in various federal, state and local jurisdictions. This is the highest incarceration number in US history. Incarceration of US criminals showed a dramatic increase beginning in the 1980s. The reason for this increase will be explained in next week's narrative on the US prison system.

 Submitted by Don Gordon

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime. Individuals of color have a disproportionate number of encounters with law enforcement, indicating that racial profiling continues to be a problem. A report by the Department of Justice found that blacks and Hispanics were approximately three times more likely to be searched during a traffic stop than white motorists. African Americans were twice as likely to be arrested and almost four times as likely to experience the use of force during encounters with the police. 

From "The Top 10 Most Startling Facts About People of Color and Criminal Justice in the United States"

Consider resolving to be more green-minded this year. Here is an easy first step: put recycle bins in accessible, high-traffic areas and provide clear information about what can and cannot be recycled. Be sure to lead by example.