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Prisoner-slaves were commonly used as the primary construction workforce in Rome. Much of the city's infrastructure and public works projects were built by the incarcerated.
The Romans utilized the concept of imprisonment much more than the Greeks that came before them did. Roman criminals or debtors would be kept away in all sorts of makeshift enclosures, basements, repurposed buildings, or simply iron cages. Many prisoners would never see freedom again, and would more often be subjected to a life of servitude.
One type of proto-prison built in Rome was the Ergastula, a complex where prisoners and slaves were kept in chains and performed hard labor day in and day out.
The ancient Greek states rarely imprisoned people, preferring other methods of punishment, but Athenian debtors would sometimes be confined temporarily until their fines were paid in a place known as the desmoterion, or the "place of chains."
Surprisingly, prisons as we know them today are a relatively new concept, and only became widespread a handful of centuries ago. That being said, other forms of punishment and confinement are nearly as old as civilization itself.
Another notable prison built in ancient Rome was the Mamertine Prison, built in 640 BCE under the orders of King Ancus Marcius. Beneath the street, prisoners were kept in the Mamertine's sewer system. It is said that the Christian saints Peter and Paul were both kept in the Mamertine Prison.
Medieval dungeons are infamous for their squalid conditions and creepy atmospheres, but the truth is prisoners in the Middle Ages were kept wherever there was room for them, whether that was a castle's dungeon, residential basements, or other places.
In England, during the 18th century, public execution became the lawful sentencing for a staggering number of crimes, for everything from murder to petty crime. At one time, a thief would be hung for the theft of any goods worth over 12 pence, which at the time was a nominal fraction of a worker's weekly wage.
After the Middle Ages, when society began to develop at a quicker rate, punishment veered back towards slavery in order to provide labor power for the upper classes. An extremely common fate was to become a galley slave, where the doomed would reside in the bellies of ships, endlessly rowing the massive ships of their masters from port to port.
One of the most popular forms of public shaming was to place criminals in the stocks. The stocks were feet-restraining devices where the convicted would be locked up and exposed to the elements and public ridicule for sometimes weeks at a time.
As the public consciousness continued to mature, these strategies of shame and physical punishment also began to seem barbaric. Penal reformist philosophers began to advocate for different types of punishments, ones that might be more efficient in actually decreasing crime rates. One such idea was incarceration as a form of punishment and reform, where convicts would be put into prisons and subjected to solitary confinement and labor as a way to "moralize" their spirits.
As imprisonment developed from a means to an end, England and the US found themselves in a sudden shortage of space. A common remedy for this was to repurpose old ships that were still buoyant but no longer seaworthy, known as hulks, and turn them into floating prisons known as convict hulks.
There were two schools of thought concerned with the efficacy of imprisonment. The first was the deterrence theory. This theory posited that the goal of a prison sentence was to be as uncomfortable and horrifying as possible, in the hopes that the convicted would never dare commit a crime again.
Many European countries also employed penal transportation during the age of colonization. Convicts would be loaded onto boats and shipped off to the Americas, Australia, and the Caribbean to work off sentences of indentured servitude in the name of Europe's colonial interests.
More and more prisons were built on land, usually in the spirit of the rehabilitation theory, and were known as houses of corrections.
The other, less brutal theory, the rehabilitation theory, believed that time in prison should be a chance to face one's sins in the eyes of God and work towards a moral state of mind, so that when convicts were released back into society they would be reintegrated as upstanding, law-abiding citizens.
One of the first prisons in England was established at Bridewell Palace in the late 17th century. Those imprisoned at Bridewell were usually assigned hard labor for the duration of their sentence.
As was the case with most developments of the 18th century, prisons and penal colonies were seen as huge money-making opportunities. Prisons collected commissions from debt collectors and even charged inmates for food and water.
While some would be sent to already established colonies, others would be sent to specially-designated penal colonies such as Devil's Island in French Guinea. After the start of the American Revolution, England could no longer send their convicts to America and instead started sending them to the island-continent now known as Australia, where the sole European presence was that of the penal colonies.
The Church had other motives to become involved in the prison business. Under the tenets of the reformist theory, the Catholic Church and Protestant denominations alike sent ministers and clergymen into prisons in the hopes of bringing convicts into the light of God.
Jeremy Bentham was an English prison reformer who set the foundation for the utilitarian, surveillance-based prison that nearly all modern prisons are based on today.
By the 19th century, more efficient prison systems were being worked towards in the United States, with the Auburn system eventually prevailing. First applied to New York's Auburn State Prison, this system placed each inmate in individual cells and forbade them from speaking to each other during eating and working hours as a way to curb revolt and organized activity.
In the 21st century, modern prison systems are still far from perfect, or even acceptable. Widespread violence, unsanitary conditions, and overcrowding pose just a few of the numerous issues in today's prison system.
Throughout the modern history of the United States, prisoners have also been subject to unethical and inhumane scientific and medical experiments, including dangerous cancer treatments and the CIA's infamous foray into mind control drugs, during which they administered large doses of hallucinogens to non-consenting inmates.
Sources: (The National Archives) (Prison History) (Crime Museum)
See more: Creepy prisons from history that'll give you the chills
Bentham's "panopticon" model was based on a circular prison complex with a central guard tower, so that every inmate would have the constant feeling of being under surveillance at any given time. The idea was that the actually security force required for the panopticon prison would be much more sparse and economical, as constant supervision wouldn't be required, and would "leave the watching to the watched."
Prison is somewhere no one wants to end up. There is an almost universal aversion towards prisons, as they are widely known to be places filled with dangerous criminals, strict guards, and less-than-savory conditions. While there are many organizations that are constantly and steadfastly working towards prison reform, most of the institutions in the world leave much to be desired. But it has also been argued, however, that prisons aren't supposed to be nice, i.e. isn't punishment the whole point?
In order to gain a clearer understanding of what prisons are and how they fit into society, it's important to learn the history of these institutions. With this in mind, read on to learn everything you need to know.
By the end of the 1700s, the public and lawmakers alike were looking for a less murderous solution to England's rampant crime. Even judges were deliberately undersentencing those brought before them in order to avoid what they saw as entirely unnecessary and inappropriate executions.
A history of prisons and their vile practices
Penal colonies, penitentiaries, and more
LIFESTYLE Jail
Prison is somewhere no one wants to end up. There is an almost universal aversion towards prisons, as they are widely known to be places filled with dangerous criminals, strict guards, and less-than-savory conditions. While there are many organizations that are constantly and steadfastly working towards prison reform, most of the institutions in the world leave much to be desired. But it has also been argued, however, that prisons aren't supposed to be nice, i.e. isn't punishment the whole point?
In order to gain a clearer understanding of what prisons are and how they fit into society, it's important to learn the history of these institutions. With this in mind, read on to learn everything you need to know.