free amp template

Prison Process

Admissions Life in Prison Discharge
ADMISSIONS
Mobirise

 Religion

    Number of Prisoners Admitted Based on Religious Identity

As seen in this graph, the vast majority of prisoners (498 out of 520 or ~96%) were not religious. This result likely solidified the prison supporters’ belief that religious education could help reduce criminal behavior, thereby promoting it in the reform process. However, the data itself actually lacks context and could alternatively suggest that most people were not religious at the time, and the following distribution in the prison simply reflects that. Regardless of the validity of either statements, this demographic distribution provides an environment in testing this new idea of “penitence”, in which religious education would bring about reform. 

PRISONER ORIGINS & SENTENCING LOCATIONS

LIFE IN PRISON
Eastern State Penitentiary created the “separate system” in which, upon entering, prisoners were subjected to separate, solitary confinement. Contrasting from the prison’s grand, church-like halls, inmates were housed in very small cells only accessible through small doors. Prison guards would escort prisoners individually throughout the day to the exercise yard with bags over the prisoners head so that other inmates could not recognize them. In solitude, prisoners were forced to reflect on their choices through the lens of Catholic morality. Each small prison cell contained a faucet, toilet, central heating, and a glass slit in the roof such that sunlight shined through each cell as the “Eye of God”, constantly watching over each prisoner and their actions. Additionally, the prison’s warden, whom the reformers assured were the most upstanding visitors, met with each prisoner every day, as required by law, to discuss religion and reflect on their experience. To further facilitate religious education, prisoners were also had access to reading the bible.

While this represented the typical intended life for each prisoner, stricter measures were taken when wardens deemed prisoners too difficult to manage. These included moving prisoners to “dark” or “bare” cells, restricting them to cold showers, lowering food rations, and more.
DISCHARGE
Literacy Changes

The number of people who can read has increased by 18.2%, emphasizing the system’s attempts at teaching prisoners in reading and writing. As bibles were available for prisoners to read, the effects of improving these skills were twofold--being literate would aid prisoners in becoming less “ignorant” (a term used frequently in the data set) and being able to read would make religious education more accessible.

Content Analysis of Discharge Notes

Mobirise

Discharge notes Wordcloud

Explore
Mobirise






Discharge notes phrases

Explore
The following word cloud was generated from the discharge notes. We decided to delete the word “discharged” to help viewers focus on more important words. Some common positive words included “hope” (92 times), “reform” (38 times), and “hopeful” (24 times). However, some negative common words include “hopeless” (34 times) and “died” (40 times). Due to the frequency of negative words, we also searched for the phrase “no hope” to better discern whether usages of the word “hope” was entirely positive. Based on the portion outlined red in the phrases chart, “no hope” (42 times) makes up ~45.6% of the frequency of hope (42/92). Therefore, even though there are instances of positive change through the reform process implemented, as indicated through the common positive words, the significant amount of negative ones also indicate some fundamental flaws with the reform procedure.

Content Analysis of Description Section

Mobirise

Literate Prisoners (LP)

Explore
Mobirise

Illiterate Prisoners (ILP)

Explore

The frequency of negative comments (“no” and “not”) that signify disapproval is higher than positive comments (“religious” and “religion”) that signify religious reform in the comments of all prisoners. Among all comments, the occurrence of positive evaluation for LP is 0.014 and ILP is 0.014. The occurrence of negative evaluation for LP is 0.022 and ILP is 0.028. In sum, the occurrence of negative comments is about 10 times higher than of positive comments that both groups (LP and ILP) received.

The frequency in making subjective comments such as “ignorant” on both LP and ILP are similar. The frequency of the word “ignorant” occurred in the comments on LP is 0.005 and ILP is 0.006. Thus, we assume that there is no significant change in the subjectivity level of the evaluation for both groups.

The frequency of using negative responses such as “no” “not” “ignorant” is higher than the positive words such as “religion” and “religious” in comparison. Still, without knowing the content of each description, we can’t determine if convicts were open to receive religious education during the reform.

EXIT PRISON