<P> Prison construction kept pace with post-revolutionary legal change . All states that revised their criminal codes to provide for incarceration also constructed new state prisons . But the focus of penal reformers in the post-revolutionary years remained largely external to the institutions they built, according to David Rothman . For reformers of the day, Rothman claims, the fact of imprisonment--not the institution's internal routine and its effect on the offender--was of primary concern . Incarceration seemed more humane than traditional punishments like hanging and whipping, and it theoretically matched punishment more specifically to the crime . But it would take another period of reform, in the Jacksonian Era, for state prison initiatives to take the shape of actual justice institutions . </P> <P> By 1800, eleven of the then - sixteen United States--i.e., Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Vermont, Maryland, New Hampshire, Georgia, and Virginia--had in place some form of penal incarceration . But the primary focus of contemporary criminology remained on the legal system, according to historian David Rothman, not the institutions in which convicts served their sentences . This changed during the Jacksonian Era, as contemporary notions of criminality continued to shift . </P> <P> Starting in the 1820s, a new institution, the "penitentiary", gradually became the focal point of criminal justice in the United States . At the same time, other novel institutions--the asylum and the almshouse--redefined care for the mentally ill and the poor . For its proponents, the penitentiary was an ambitious program whose external appearance, internal arrangements, and daily routine would counteract the disorder and immorality thought to be breeding crime in American society . Although its adoption was haphazard at first, and marked by political strife--especially in the South--the penitentiary became an established institution in the United States by the end of the 1830s . </P> <P> Jacksonian - era reformers and prison officials began seeking the origins of crime in the personal histories of criminals and traced the roots of crime to society itself . In the words of historian David Rothman, "They were certain that children lacking discipline quickly fell victim to the influence of vice at loose in the community ." Jacksonian reformers specifically tied rapid population growth and social mobility to the disorder and immorality of contemporary society . </P>

Why did the united states begin opening prisons
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