Beginning in 1682 known as “The Great Law” was based on principals and hard labor as a punishment. The roots of the corrections goes back to the European system used in England.
Then many punishment options existed like public shaming, more common practices were whipping, branding, cutting off body parts, the more harsh crimes offenders were hung in public. There is a long timeline of our corrections history and Up until 1776 it was procedure for criminals to be banished from the American towns as a form of punishment by the British Authorities. Punishment came in different forms like exile, public shaming or flogging. The Quakers in Pennsylvania and West Jersey were among the first to advocate corporal or capital punishment, which essentially laid the foundation of modern criminal justice. By 1861 large prisons were used to house thousands of criminals. However; the Western states decided to use old jails while the south put prisoners on farm labor.
