The Auburn Prison System

A new prison modelled on Pennsylvanian pattern was built at Auburn in New York State in 1818-19. The distinguishing feature of this system was that prisoners were to work in shops under a strict rule of silence. In the initial stage, only hardened criminals were brought to this prison to undergo solitary confinement without work.

But experience with this prison showed that severity of solitary confinement had fatal consequences on physical and mental health, of inmates and most of them suffered mental disorder or committed suicide. Consequently, a large number of prisoners were pardoned and released in 1823. The system which was adopted in this prison after 1823 came to be known as the Auburn system.

The essence of the Auburn system lay in forced silence and separation at night but congregate work in shops during day time. Commenting on the working of Auburn System, J.L. Gillin observed that most serious and hardened criminals were kept in solitary confinement in complete isolation so that they could spend their days in penance and repentance for their crime.

The prisoners who were deemed corrigibles were made to work in shops during day but were housed in isolated cells during night-time. The striking feature of the system was that the prisoners were not allowed to talk or communicate with each other while at work or during lunch or supper.

Those who tried to break silence, were flogged and punished. Thus, hard labour in shops during day time was considered essential from the point of view of physical and mental fitness of inmates while enforcement of silence in association served as a measure of punitive reaction to crime. Even visits by the members of the prisoner’s family were forbidden.

It is for this reason that Gillin characterised the Auburn system as “a system of discipline by repression and labour under fear.” Although the system yielded useful results and silence while at work or during leisure prevented contamination of prisoners, but it was undoubtedly a brutal method of treating the offenders and it hardly had any reformative impact on them. The system as a whole provided no exercise, play or sociability. The warden himself had no conversation with the prisoners until just before their release when the inmate was given three dollers and advice.

From the foregoing analysis, it is evident that both the systems lay greater emphasis on non-communication between the prisoners and extracting work from them during day time and keeping them in complete isolation during night. The only difference between the two was that in Pennsylvanian system the prisoners were to live and work in isolated cells and therefore, they could not even know each other while the Auburn system provided congregate work in shops during day where the prisoners could see and know each other but could not, however, communicate. It is primarily, for this reason that Donald Taft characterised the Pennsylvanian system as the separate system and the Auburn system as the silent system.