Incarceration in the US is a primary form of punishment and rehabilitation for felons. The United States has the largest prison population in the world, and the highest per-capita incarceration rate. Eventually this nation will be judged by the efficacy of these deplorable institutions.
Prison Block (HVP 1)
Prison Hospital (HVP 2)
Due to falling crime rates and criminal justice reforms, the state of Pennsylvania has closed five correctional facilities over the past decade. Cresson State Prison. (HVP 3)
These closures highlight the ideological shift in thinking that’s occurred about the criminal justice system in recent years, which has focused on reforms that aim to address racial disparities in sentencing. Cresson State Prison. (HVP 4)
Dwight Correctional Center was established in 1930 as the Oakdale Reformatory for Women and operated for 83 years until its closure in 2013. (HVP 5)
At that time, it was the only maximum-security prison for adult females in the Illinois Department of Corrections, inclusive of women on death row until the death penalty was abolished in Illinois in 2011. (HVP 6)
Visitor's Center, Dwight Female Correctional Facility, Illinois (HVP 7)
Tennessee State Prison is a former correctional center located near the downtown area of Nashville, Tennessee. The fortress-like structure contained 800 unheated and unventilated single-occupancy cells. (HVP 8)
Overcrowded from the day it opened in 1898, the prison was the site of numerous riots and escape attempts. The facility finally closed in 1992 as a result of a class action lawsuit that prohibited the Tennessee Department of Correction from ever housing inmates there again.(HVP 9)
