<P> But despite Virginia's example, Kentucky, Maryland, and Georgia all constructed prisons before 1820, and the trend continued in the South thereafter . Early Southern prisons were marked by escapes, violence, and arson . The personal reformation of inmates was left almost solely to underpaid prison chaplains . Bitter opposition from the public and rampant overcrowding both marked Southern penal systems during the antebellum period . But once established, southern penitentiaries took on lives of their own, with each state's system experiencing a complex history of innovation and stagnation, efficient and inefficient wardens, relative prosperity and poverty, fires, escapes, and legislative attacks; but they did follow a common trajectory . </P> <P> During the period in which slavery existed, few black Southerners in the lower South were imprisoned, and virtually none of those imprisoned were slaves . Most often, slaves accused of crimes--especially less serious offenses--were tried informally in extra-legal plantation "courts," although it was not uncommon for slaves to come within the formal jurisdiction of the Southern courts . The majority of Southern inmates during the antebellum period were foreign - born whites . Nevertheless, in the upper South, free blacks made up a significant (and disproportionate) one - third of state prison populations . Governors and legislators in both the upper and lower South became concerned about racial mixing in their prison systems . Virginia experimented for a time with selling free blacks convicted of "serious" crimes into slavery until public opposition led to the measure's repeal (but only after forty such persons were sold). </P> <P> Very few women, black or white, were imprisoned in the antebellum South . But for those women who did come under the control of Southern prisons, conditions were often "horrendous," according to Edward L. Ayers . Although they were not made to shave their heads like male convicts, female inmates in the antebellum South did not live in specialized facilities--as was the case in many antebellum Northern prisons--and sexual abuse was common . </P> <P> As in the North, the costs of imprisonment preoccupied Southern authorities, although it appears that Southerners devoted more concern to this problem than their Northern counterparts . Southern governors of the antebellum period tended to have little patience for prisons that did not turn a profit or, at least, break even . Southern prisons adopted many of the same money - making tactics as their Northern counterparts . Prisons earned money by charging fees to visitors . They also earned money by harnessing convict labor to produce simple goods that were in steady demand, like slave shoes, wagons, pails, and bricks . But this fomented unrest among workers and tradesmen in Southern towns and cities . Governor Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, a former tailor, waged political war on his state's penitentiary and the industries it had introduced among its inmates . To avoid these conflicts, some states--like Georgia and Mississippi--experimented with prison industry for state - run enterprises . But in the end few penitentiaries, North or South, turned a profit during the antebellum period . </P>

What was the first prison designed to house sentenced offenders in the united states called