Walnut Street Prison

Walnut avenue Prison

Tonia Jenkins
History of Criminal Justice
Sarah Robertson
April 8, 2012
The Walnut Street Prison was a pioneering effort in prison reform. before build as a conventional poky equitable before the American Revolution, it was expanded in 1790 and hailed as a model of enlightened thinking ab pop whitlows (Johnston).The prison was built on Walnut Street, in Philadelphia, as a urban center jail in 1773 to alleviate overcrowding in the existing urban center jail. The Walnut Street Prison was one of the forerunners of an entire instill of thought on prison construction and reform. It was designed to appropriate a severe environment that left inmates much prison term for reflection, but it was also designed to be cleaner and safer than gone prisons.
The jail was designed to h ancient groups of inmates in large rooms. The construction was in the typical U-shape designed to hold large total of inmates. There was little regard for their physical well-being and there were no attempts to rehabilitate them. The prison was overcrowded and dirty, and inmates attacked each other regularly. Those who served their sentences came out of prison probably more inclined toward a criminal life than they were before their incarceration.




An act of 1790 brought about sweeping reforms in the prison and authorized a penitentiary house with 16 cells to be built in the yard of the jail to convey out solitary confinement with labor for hardened uncivilized offenders (Johnston). Walnut Street Jail, by the same legislation, became the first area prison in Pennsylvania. Following 1790, the Walnut Street jail became a showplace, with separation of different sorts of prisoners and workshops providing useful trade instruction. The old abuses and idleness seemed eliminated, but with Walnut Street now a state prison and the population of Philadelphia increasing rapidly, it, like its predecessor, became unacceptably crowded. The large rooms, 18 feet square, which still housed most of the prisoners, by...If you want to suck a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay



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