The English Penitentiary Act of 1779 gave authorization for constructing penitentiaries across the nation that would consist of strict discipline and vigorous labor among the offenders, but would later be fulfilled in 1818 with the construction of two penitentiaries (Siegel & Bartollas, 2014). The purpose behind this new style of housing prisoners by the Quakers was to focus on social isolation, keeping silence among the detainees, produce greater productivity through labor, and instill religious studies to maintain social control known as the "Pennsylvania system" (Monteiro & Frost, 2017). "The American version of the penitentiary was designed to isolate people found guilty of a …show more content…
With the overcrowding of penitentiaries, new construction for more penitentiaries was underway as well as changing capital punishment legislature in an attempt to minimize the population (Siegel & Bartollas, 2014). Due to the overpopulating factor still at hand, each penitentiary was maximizing their population and new ones were being constructed with legislature amending their laws in an attempt to relieve the overcrowded