What is Auburn?

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What is Auburn?
The Auburn system is named after the Auburn prison in New York, which is a variation of the Quaker Pennsylvania penitentiaries from the 19th century. The prison system attempted to rehabilitate criminals using hard labor combined with solitary confinement while at the same time using their labor to offset the expenses of running a prison. Many of the disciplinary practices in the Auburn system have been replaced, but its foundations are the model for many prisons throughout the world.

Until the 1700s, jails in America were typically used to hold the accused before trials and sentencing, not for long-term imprisonment. Many of the punishments were either a form of public ridicule or execution. Holding a person in confinement was not used until the Quakers in Pennsylvania disapproved of the death penalty because of their religious beliefs. The Quakers kept the prisons in complete silence and each prisoner was kept in solitary confinement for the entire length of their sentence. The goal of the Quaker system was to reform offenders. Prisoners were eventually allowed Bibles to help them return to an acceptable way of life.

The Auburn system also kept prisoners in solitary confinement a majority of the time. Silence was supposed to make inmates conforming and labor was the tool for rehabilitation. In principle, the labor was for the prisoner’s good and was supposed to teach them the value of hard work. Often the labor of the prisoners brought a profit to the prison system, causing some to believe prisoners were exploited for their labor.

This criticism of the exploitation had some justification. Tourists were charged admission to enter the prison in the 1800s. Admission fees helped to spread the popularity of the system throughout the world, and they were used as a tool to humiliate the prisoners. The prisoner’s lack of choice was emphasized seeing others freely enter and exit the prison.

During most of the 19th century, the Auburn employed swift and sever punishments. Elam Lynds, a warden of the prison, routinely used flogging as a punishment, which lead to the death of at least one prisoner. By the 1900s, corporal punishment was abolished and a minority insisted prisoners should have some rights.

The Auburn system may seem barbaric in nature today. At a time, it was actually an advancement in humanity. Before the existence of long-term imprisonment, a majority of offenses carried the death penalty as punishment, including homosexuality, denying God’s existence, and stealing. The Auburn aimed to rehabilitate offenders through silence and hard labor. Although the silence and hard labor were brutal punishments, it also gave offenders the chance of redemption, an unusually humanistic concept in a brutal, unforgiving world.

As a summary, the Auburn prison system combined solitary confinement with hard labor to rehabilitate criminals while at the same time using them to offset the cost of running a prison. Many of the brutal disciplinary practices used in Auburn have been replaced, but its foundations are the model for prisons around the world. Still, there are some practices from the Auburn system being adopted to some prisons.

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