The Auburn system is a penal

Criminal justice

Criminal Justice is the system of practices and institutions of governments directed at upholding social control, deterring and mitigating crime, or sanctioning those who violate laws with criminal penalties and rehabilitation efforts...

 method of the 19th century in which persons worked during the day in groups and were kept in solitary confinement

Solitary confinement

Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...

 at night, with enforced silence at all times. The silent system evolved during the 1820s at Auburn Prison

Auburn Prison

Auburn Correctional Facility is a state prison located on State Street in Auburn, New York, built on land that was once a Cayuga Indian Village. It is classified as a maximum security facility....

 in Auburn, New York

Auburn, New York

Auburn is a city in Cayuga County, New York, United States of America. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 27,687...

, as an alternative to and modification of the Pennsylvania System

Separate system

The Separate system is a form of prison management based on the principle of keeping prisoners in solitary confinement. When first introduced in the early 19th century, the objective of such a prison or "penitentiary" was that of penance by the prisoners through silent reflection, as much as that...

 of solitary confinement, which it gradually replaced in the United States. Whigs

Whig Party (United States)

The Whig Party was a political party of the United States during the era of Jacksonian democracy. Considered integral to the Second Party System and operating from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s, the party was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic...

 favored this system because it promised to rehabilitate criminals by teaching them personal discipline and respect for work, property, and other people.

Among notable elements of the Auburn system were striped uniforms, lockstep

Lockstep

Lockstep systems are redundant computing systems that run the same set of operations at the same time in parallel. The output from lockstep operations can be compared to determine if there has been a fault....

 and silence.

Prison life

During the 19th century, prisoners had no rights or any opportunity to live semi-comfortably. The Auburn system established several characteristics that were unique to the world of disciplinary conditions. Silence was the biggest factor in the line of rules the prisoners had to follow. Cray wanted the prisoners to be completely silent. This lack of speaking takes away the prisoners' “sense of self”. When the “sense of self” was taken away, many convicts became complacent and obedient to the warden's wishes.

The second characteristic of the Auburn system that was important to prison life was the community activities. During regimented times during the day, the prisoners would have different tasks to perform every day. Some of these task included making “nails, barrel

Barrel

A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container, traditionally made of vertical wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. Traditionally, the barrel was a standard size of measure referring to a set capacity or weight of a given commodity. A small barrel is called a keg.For example, a...

s, clothing

Clothing

Clothing refers to any covering for the human body that is worn. The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of nearly all human societies...

, shoe

Shoe

A shoe is an item of footwear intended to protect and comfort the human foot while doing various activities. Shoes are also used as an item of decoration. The design of shoes has varied enormously through time and from culture to culture, with appearance originally being tied to function...

s and boot

Boot

A boot is a type of footwear but they are not shoes. Most boots mainly cover the foot and the ankle and extend up the leg, sometimes as far as the knee or even the hip. Most boots have a heel that is clearly distinguishable from the rest of the sole, even if the two are made of one piece....

s, carpet

Carpet

A carpet is a textile floor covering consisting of an upper layer of "pile" attached to a backing. The pile is generally either made from wool or a manmade fibre such as polypropylene,nylon or polyester and usually consists of twisted tufts which are often heat-treated to maintain their...

s, button

Button

In modern clothing and fashion design, a button is a small fastener, most commonly made of plastic, but also frequently of seashell, which secures two pieces of fabric together. In archaeology, a button can be a significant artifact. In the applied arts and in craft, a button can be an example of...

s, carpenter

Carpenter

A carpenter is a skilled craftsperson who works with timber to construct, install and maintain buildings, furniture, and other objects. The work, known as carpentry, may involve manual labor and work outdoors....

s' tools, steam engine

Steam engine

A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...

s and boiler

Boiler

A boiler is a closed vessel in which water or other fluid is heated. The heated or vaporized fluid exits the boiler for use in various processes or heating applications.-Materials:...

s, comb

Comb

A comb is a toothed device used in hair care for straightening and cleaning hair or other fibres. Combs are among the oldest tools found by archaeologists...

s, harnesses, furniture, broom

Broom

A broom is a cleaning tool consisting of stiff fibers attached to, and roughly parallel to, a cylindrical handle, the broomstick. It is thus a variety of brush with a long handle. It is commonly used in combination with a dustpan....

s, clock

Clock

A clock is an instrument used to indicate, keep, and co-ordinate time. The word clock is derived ultimately from the Celtic words clagan and clocca meaning "bell". A silent instrument missing such a mechanism has traditionally been known as a timepiece...

s, bucket

Bucket

A bucket, also called a pail, is typically a watertight, vertical cylinder or truncated cone, with an open top and a flat bottom, usually attached to a semicircular carrying handle called the bail. A pail can have an open top or can have a lid....

s and pails, saddle

Saddle

A saddle is a supportive structure for a rider or other load, fastened to an animal's back by a girth. The most common type is the equestrian saddle designed for a horse, but specialized saddles have been created for camels and other creatures...

 trees...”.

During the 1840s, the prison began to make production in the silk

Silk

Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...

 business by bringing in silk worms and trees. The Auburn correctional facility was the first prison to gain money as a profit for the labor of the prisoners. The prison also gained many sight-seers during the 19th century. These visits by strangers made life even more unbearable because of the constant flow of free people.

Lockstep and clothing

John D. Cray also created a revolutionary system of transporting the convicts around the prison complex. The prisoners marched in unison and had to lock their arms to the convict in front of them. The prisoners had to look to one side and were not allowed to look at the guards or the other inmates. The clothing of the Auburn state prison was very simple: a grayish material with horizontal stripes.

Punishment

In 1821, a new principal keeper, Elam Lynds

Elam Lynds

Captain Elam Lynds was the creator of the Auburn system starting in 1821 and was Warden of Sing Sing from 1825 to 1830.-Biography:...

, was appointed to run the prison. Lynds believed absolutely in the disciplinary power of the lash and used flogging to punish even minor infractions. When Elam Lynds was in power, many inmates died from the abuse of the whip. In 1839, a prisoner died from neglect and over-flogging. The committee of Auburn and other staff members of the Auburn Theological Seminary

Auburn Theological Seminary

Auburn Theological Seminary was founded in 1818. Auburn Theological Seminary focuses on religious leadership development, movement-building, and research. Auburn is based in New York City and exists in covenant with the Presbyterian Church ....

 petitioned to bring the issue of the punishments to the State government. “The law stated that six blows on the naked back with the "cat" or six-stranded whip was the most punishment that could be assigned for any one offense.”

In 1846 another meeting was congregated to abolish the use of whips as punishment. The flagellation could only be used for riots or in severe cases. When whippings were prohibited, guards and keepers searched for new and inventive ways to punish the disorderly. “The shower bath consisted of a barrel about 4½ feet high with a discharge tube at the bottom. The prisoner was stripped naked, bound hand and foot, with a wooden collar around his neck to prevent him moving his head. The barrel, with the inmate inside, was placed directly under an outlet pipe, where water, sometimes iced, would pour down.” Another form of punishment that was allowed was “the yoke”. The yoke used iron bars around the neck and arms of the prisoners.

Women and the prison

In the early days of the prison, women inmates were held in the windowless and airless attic atop of the high security prison. They shared a single room and worked in the same area where they slept, primarily at "picking wool, knitting, and spooling." In 1838, all women prisoners were transferred to the then-new female wing at Sing Sing

Sing Sing

Sing Sing Correctional Facility is a maximum security prison operated by the New York State Department of Correctional Services in the town of Ossining, New York...

, but in 1892 the women returned to a new building added to the Auburn prison. The Auburn Women's Prison remained in operation until 1933, when a new maximum-security wing for female inmates opened at Bedford Hills

Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women

Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women is a prison for women in Bedford Hills in the Town of Bedford, Westchester County, New York, USA. Bedford Hills, the only New York State Department of Correctional Services women's maximum security prison, is the largest women's prison in New York State...

.

The End of an era

As time slowly progressed, new forms of discipline and new rights of prisoners grew also. Near the end of the 1800s most forms of abuse or corporal punishment

Corporal punishment

Corporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable...

were abolished from the codes. Next, the striped uniforms, lockstep and silent system were abandoned because most people thought they were too inhumane.