Newgate

Newgate, New York's first state prison, is unremembered today. Unlike Auburn and Sing Sing, it planted no seeds for the correctional future. Nor did it last long. Newgate opened in 1797 and closed 31 years later when the new Sing Sing prison was ready to take prisoners sentenced out of New York City. Begun with high hopes as the solution to the problem of crime, Newgate's inadequacy to the task was apparent almost immediately. Its first steps proved to be fatal ones.

The Colonial Background

Newgate represented a rejection of the approach to crime and punishment that had prevailed in the colonies. Crime in colonial times was seen as sin; it had always been with us and always would be. Since the criminal's depravity was considered as natural and unerasable as a leopard's spots, reformation was not an aim of punishment. Punishment was to deter the offender as well as the crowds who gathered to watch.

Loss of liberty was seldom used as punishment: mere confinement was for paupers and orphans, debtors, the debilitated and insane and other nuisances. Confinement was also used to hold suspected wrong-doers pending trial. Once there was a finding of guilt, it was the duty of the community to either (1) shame the offender into acceptable behavior through branding, the stocks, the pillory, cropping their ears, or carting them through the streets; (2) scare them (and the spectators) straight, through fines or whipping or other tortures, or (3) eliminate them through exile or death. By the time the colonies won independence, Americans viewed vengeful retribution as a brutal remnant of monarchical tyranny. Free now to discard the outmoded laws and traditions of the homeland, New York and other former colonies could act on better ideas, and better ideas were in abundance. The Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century had produced a habit of mind characterized by disdain for authority and traditional doctrines, a love of liberty, and a faith in universal progress.

In the field of penology, new ideas from Europe were widely known in the former colonies. In his 1764 An Essay on Crimes and Punishment, Italy's Cesare Beccaria had concluded that the indiscriminate severity and inconsistent application of the criminal laws in Europe were hindrances to law and order The harshness of the laws promoted disrespect for authority, and people were reluctant to cooperate in bringing petty thieves to the gallows. The failure to distinguish degrees of wrong doing, according to Beccaria, was an invitation to more serious crime. To prevent crime, Beccaria said, "see to it that the laws are clear and simple and that the entire force of a nation is united in their defense."

The Irishman Thomas Eddy

For New York to join the vanguard, all that was needed was someone to assert leadership. That someone was Thomas Eddy. Eddy was born in Philadelphia in 1758 to Irish immigrants. He later settled in New York City and, after achieving financial success as an insurance broker, was able to devote himself to his many philanthropic interests. He opposed imprisonment for debt, served on Quaker committees to aid American Indians, and helped found the House of Refuge for paupers and the New York Bible Society. In 1805, he helped establish a free school for poor children in New York City, a step toward a public school system. He was an active supporter of the New York Hospital and helped found the Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane.

But Eddy was chiefly known as a penologist and was called "the John Howard of America" by his contemporaries. Prompted by outbreaks of disorder in the New York City jail, he traveled to Philadelphia in 1796 with General Philip John Schuyler, the father-in-law of Alexander Hamilton and a member of the New York State Senate, to examine the Walnut Street Jail, founded six years earlier by Quakers and already famous as the foremost correctional institution of the times. Eddy and Schuyler were fully taken with the Jail's enlightened philosophy, its orderly and humane management, and its claims of success in bringing about safer conditions on the streets of Philadelphia. On their return to New York, it was short work to persuade the State Legislature to rewrite the penal code and to establish prisons on the Philadelphia model.

The New Penal Code

Prior to Eddy and Schuyler's new penal code, 16 crimes were punishable by death in New York, including murder, rape, robbery, treason, burglary, the taking of goods from a church, forgery and counterfeiting. All other felonies, if committed a second time, were also capital. The new law, passed in March, 1796, created a schedule of crimes and punishments. Only treason and murder were retained as capital offenses. Other crimes formerly punishable by death were now punishable by imprisonment for life, with hard labor or solitary confinement as judicial options. Other felonies were punishable on the first offense by imprisonment up to 14 years, again with hard labor or solitary confinement available to the judge; for a second offense, the punishment was increased to life. Petty larceny was punishable by up to a year's imprisonment on the first offense but up to three years for a second offense. Sentences up to a year were served in county jails, longer sentences in the state prison.

Construction gets underway

The new law authorized two state prisons. One, intended for Albany, was never built; instead, the whole of the appropriation was directed to the institution to be erected in New York City. Eddy and four other citizens were appointed commissioners to oversee its design and construction.

Newgate was erected in rural country ("pleasant, airy, and salubrious," as Eddy called the site in his 1801 book), about two miles above City Hall in what is now Greenwich Village. Construction was begun in the summer of 1796 and finished in late 1797. On four acres overlooking the Hudson River, the Doric-style building was of two stories with a cupola, surrounded by a stone wall ranging from 14 to 23 feet high. It contained 54 12-by-I 8-foot rooms designed for eight persons each; there were also 14 solitary cells, eight feet by six feet and 14-foot high, with windows eight feet from the floor, for a total capacity of 446 prisoners. A large room for a chapel was set aside, as were living quarters for the keeper and his family.. Another two-story building of brick, 200 feet long by 20 feet wide, contained the work-shops. There was also a garden "in excellent order," as Eddy wrote. 'The entire cost of the grounds, buildings, and a wharf on the river-front was $208,846. The first prisoners arrived Nov.28, 1797

The structure itself differed little from existing institutions of the day. In particular, housing was congregate with two inmates to a bed. By 1801 Eddy realized this was a serious error: had the rooms been constructed for occupancy by a single prisoner, "the chance of their corrupting each other would have been diminished, and escapes would have been more difficult."

Administration and Staffing

Newgate's administrative scheme, virtually cloned on the Philadelphia model, would prevail in American prisons throughout the Nineteenth Century. Today, a prison is usually run by a warden or superintendent who reports to a Commissioner of Corrections who reports to the Governor. But today's system was 80 years away. It was not until 1847 that New York would arrive at the model now common among state correctional systems.

Responsibility for Newgate was placed in seven unpaid gentleman "inspectors" appointed by and serving at the pleasure of the Governor. One of the inspectors served as the Agent. or chief business officer, at a salary of $,l,500 plus lodging (Eddy was Newgate's first Agent). Also reporting to the inspectors were a principal keeper at $875 per year plus lodging and board for his family and a resident clerk at $500 a year. The principal keeper supervised a deputy keeper at $400 a year and 11 assistant keepers at $250 each "with diet, lodging, and washing."

Inmate pay maintenance, housing costs

On reception at Newgate, the new prisoner was stripped of his clothes, washed, and given the prison uniform: shoes and stockings, flannel shirt, and brown jacket and trousers for a first offender, with second offenders distinguished by "a dress one half red and the other half blue." A description of his appearance, crime, and "whatever may enable them to form a judgement of the degree of his depravity" was entered into a book. "He is then asked what kind of work he is fitted to perform, or is inclined to undertake; and the next day commences his course of labor."

An account was set up for each new inmate. He was charged for his clothing, the expenses of his transportation to the prison, and fifteen cents a day for his maintenance. An inmate clerk kept a record of each prisoner's labor and earnings, which were credited to his account. The inspectors were authorized to pay the inmate at his release for earning in excess of expenses, but not mandated to do so. They would, according to Eddy, "take into consideration the character of the person before his conviction, his behavior during confinement, [and] the general disposition he has manifested If, on the whole, it appears probable that he may make a bad use of the money, they give him one or two dollars only."

Often fooled "by those who promised to do well," they devised a scheme of conditional payment: most of the money due was withheld and the balance paid after three months if the former inmate produced a "certificate, signed by creditable citizens that he has...behaved orderly, soberly, and industriously." The conditional payment is interesting in that it can be thought of as an attempt to retain control after release from custody.

Meals, coarse but nutritious, were taken in silence. At other times, the silent system that would be instituted at Auburn and Sing Sing was absent from Newgate. Decorum was required in the shops: "All swearing, singing, whistling, idle or indecent conversation, are strictly prohibited." Another leniency later dispensed with under the Auburn/Sing Sing system was visiting: well behaved prisoners at Newgate could be visited by their wives and relatives "in the presence of a keeper."

A program of education (from which Auburn and Sing Sing would retreat) was introduced by Eddy During the winter, the "most meritorious" convicts were instructed two hours daily, by an advanced inmate in reading, writing and arithmetic. Four shillings a week, made up through over stints in the shops, were charged to each inmate for light, fuel, and writing implements.

Religious and moral instruction was provided every Sunday in a room accommodating 500 persons. A prisoner read prayers and led in the singing of psalms. Sermons were given by volunteer preachers "of every Christian denomination" from the New York City religious community. Each housing block "apartment" was furnished with a Bible and religious books.

The struggle to establish a work program

The work program was of critical importance to Eddy, who thought that "the most efficacious means of rehabilitation are to be found in that system of regular labor and exact temperance by which habits of industry and temperance are formed." He also thought it essential to make the institution self-supporting, so that the taxpayers were not burdened with the expense of the prisoners' keep. These are themes that will sound across prison history to the present day.

Several of the prisoners were assigned to the vegetable garden, the kitchen, and prison maintenance duties; though they offset costs, these activities did not generate revenue. Productive work did not commence for two years, until the workshops were built. The first industry undertaken at Newgate was the manufacture of shoes and boots, "under the instruction of a prisoner sentenced for life, who was a skillful shoemaker." This was followed by the production of nails, barrels, linen and woolen cloth, cloth- woolen cloth, clothing, and wooden-ware, and later of brushes, spinning wheels, clothespins, bobbins, spools, butter churns, and whips. Female prisoners were employed in washing, spinning, sewing etc.

The opposition of private manufacturers and labor to competition from prison labor was evident immediately. Eddy was sensitive to the problem and, while decrying 'the selfish views of. . private interests" opposed to "the general good," saw fit to point out that the bulk of shoes worn by New York's citizens were made in New Jersey. Nonetheless, private interests prevailed upon the legislature in 1801 to require that Newgate's boots and shoes be branded "State Prison" to discourage their purchase.

Free labor fears intensified in 1802 when Newgate entered into a contract with an outside bootmaker for work to be done inside the prison. By 1804, in an attempt to limit prison production, the legislature stipulated that not more than one-eighth of the prisoners should he employed at shoemaking, excluding those who had learned the trade before their conviction.

Early opposition to prison industry was generally ineffective, but so was the prison industrial program. The prison staff had no expertise in business affairs, appropriations for materials were hard to come by, and, as a workforce, the prisoners were second-rate. they arrived in mixed states of mental and physical health, tended to have little work experience, saw no community of interest with their employer, and (sabotage and arson excepted) were not inclined to exert themselves.

Newgate quickly lapsed into annual deficits, exacerbated by the mercurial market and overcrowding, particularly with the crime wave after the War of 1812. In 1817, the Legislature determined that the State should no longer bear the risk of expenditures for raw materials and unsold inventories, decreeing that the risk should be transferred to the private sector; materials would be brought to the prison by entrepreneurs who contracted to pay a fixed labor charge for the goods produced by the inmates. Newgate's administrators complained, first, that it was difficult to find contractors and, second, that it made the prison dependent upon them (the failure of a shoemaking contractor in 1819 idled many inmates for months, with no income to the prison). In 18l8, profits fell to $16,000, far below the $58,000 charges for food and maintenance alone.

The inspectors pleaded for a return to the state account system. By 1821, Newgate was defying or evading the law, with less than half the industries running on a contract basis. (It would be several years before Auburn would devise a prison discipline in which the contract system would thrive. Subsequent abuses and the unalterable opposition of private interests to anything that worked would lead to a constitutional amendment in 1894 banning all contracts and creating the state use system now in place in New York and most other jurisdictions.)

Troubles Bedevil Newgate: Overcrowding and Disorder

Newgate was not immune from politics. With the appointment of new inspectors, Quaker policies were outvoted and Eddy's control of the prison eroded. He resigned in January, 1804.

Not that Eddy's continuance would have long forestalled troubles: Newgate's flaws ran too deep. The congregate housing model of the old jails was unworkable, as Eddy quickly recognized. Many saw his faith, that enlightened sentencing laws would automatically produce a rational penitentiary system, as hopelessly naive. It was inevitable also that convicts and guards alike would adjust in unfortunate ways to the mild system established by the Quakers: as the novelty faded, keepers relaxed their discipline; inmates took advantage, provoking increasingly brutal countertactics.

Another unforeseen obstacle was the intractability of the industrial problem. Discord and confusion were inherent in the fragmented administrative scheme (amateur inspectors and a principal keeper independent of the agent or warden) And (overcrowding, as always, was beyond Newgate's control.

Newgate, designed for less than 450 prisoners, could not possibly keep pace with the growth in population of New York City in the early 1800's. A crime wave followed the return of soldiers to New York City after the War of 1812, with the number of convictions increasing from 295 in 1815 to 436 in 1816. Until further construction, there were only two remedies, both bad: Cramming the inmates into the available space, or releasing them by pardon. A "good time" law in 1817 permitted the inspectors to shorten an inmate's term by one-quarter, but this was a band-aid. By 1821, Newgate had 817 residents; without the exercise of executive clemency, there would have been over 2,000.

However necessary under the circumstances, the reliance on the pardoning power was decried by penologists everywhere. The pardon undercut whatever rationality Eddy's penal code revision had attained. Nine-tenths of all releases were by pardon rather than completion of the sentence (parole was many decades away). Mass releases twice a year disrupted prison industries and created disciplinary problems. Inmates expected to serve out no more than half their terms, and were outraged if held past that date; after the semiannual pardon-fests, disappointed convicts were prone to rampage and sabotage. Lawyers hung about the doors, bargaining with inmates, circulating petitions, and besieging the Governor. The effects outside the prison walls were likewise unfortunate, as every pardon season saw 40 to 50 unreformed felons suddenly loosed upon the citizenry.

Newgate was also ill designed to manage special classes of offenders. Female prisoners were housed separately, but not separately enough. when a Swedish nobleman visited Newgate in 1819, he was told that the 40 women caused more problems than the rest of the inmates put together. Considered an economic drain, they were carelessly governed and fearless of discipline. They would catcall to the men and attempt liaisons: "The utmost vulgarity, obscenity, and wantonness, characterizes their language, their habits and their manners," wrote a former convict. "Their bestial salacity, in their visual amours, is agonizing to every fibre of delicacy and virtue." Many of the males, of course, were not so agonized, and the presence of the women was a continual management problem.

The insane and deranged were another group that plagued Newgate. One man thought he had dethroned Napoleon, won the victories of Perry and Macdonough, and fought for revolutionary causes in Latin America. "Poor creature!" observed the same former convict so concerned for his delicacy and virtue, "his history would fill an octavo."

Newgate was gradually coming to look, feel, and even smell like an old-style jail. Eddy's paternalistic visiting program collapsed. Visitors brought troubles: whiskey, tools, money, and unauthorized messages. Contractors for prison industries also smuggled alcohol and other contraband to induce the convicts to work. Around 1815, even the inspectors, in what sounds like caving in to extortion, agreed to reward industrious prisoners with a pint of "wholesome beer."

By 1815, clownish striped suits, foreboding the future, were introduced for Newgate's first termers; the second termers' jackets and trousers were brown on one side only; third termers were given a red, white, and blue cap with the numeral "3" on the front.

Jostling and disorder were common in the yard; Sundays especially were characterized by obscene singing, rowdy horseplay, and gambling. Insolence and idleness, filthiness, and possession of shivs were general. And with respect to the reformation of offenders, the common perception was that Newgate, like the jails of old, had become a school for crime.

Getting Physical: Rebellion and Repression

A 1796 law forbid the keepers from carrying arms inside the prison and from striking the prisoners. The only allowable punishment was solitary confinement on a restricted diet. The need for access to force was soon apparent. In 1799, several guards were taken hostage by 50 to 60 inmates; the mutiny was quelled only when guards opened fire, wounding several inmates. The next year, the assistance of the military was required to break up a riot; three or four ringleaders were injured, according to a newspaper report, and it was rumored that a keeper had been knifed in the face. As a consequence of these incidents, together with several escapes, the Legislature in 1800 authorized the formation of a "State Prison Guard" to patrol the walls and pursue escapees. The Guard was under the jurisdiction of the mayor of New York City, an arrangement that did not sit well with Eddy, who must have felt like the ruler of an occupied country. Besides, Eddy was still confident that order could be maintained by the right sort of keeper, "with a heart warmed by the feelings of benevolence, but firm and resolute." Succeeding agents tried to gain control of the Guard, but it was not to be: its captain was an aged and crippled veteran of the Revolution, and legislators could not bring themselves to demote a man who had bled for his country's independence.

In 1803, 40 men broke from the housing area into the prison yard and started a fire; when 20 of them tried to escape over the walls, the keepers opened fire and killed four of them. The following May, a number of convicts escaped after locking several keepers in a building and setting it on fire; a remorseful convict mercifully opened the door, sparing the keepers' lives.

In 1817, perceiving that existing disciplinary sanctions had lost their sting, the Legislature prescribed the death penalty for any inmate who committed arson or assaulted an officer with intent to kill. But in June of 1818, a full-blown riot involving a majority of the population threatened the total destruction of the prison. Military force was brought in to quell the insurrection. Though about 100 ringleaders were placed in solitary, the convicts' behavior continued to be so menacing that the sentinels on the walls were authorized to fire at them.

Finally, in 1819, the Legislature legalized flogging at Newgate and Auburn (which had opened two years earlier). No more than 39 blows were to be inflicted, and only by the principal keeper under the direction and supervision of two of the prison's inspectors. The use of stocks and irons was also authorized. By 1823, punishments included chaining inmates to the floor on their backs for days at a time and a "Sunday Cell" in which a man could neither stand nor lie down.

The breakdown of Eddy's mild penitentiary regime was complete. All was in readiness for the emergence of the Auburn/Sing Sing system.

The End of the Dream

In 1824, a legislative commission was appointed to visit Newgate and Auburn and make recommendations for additional prison capacity. The commission recommended that Newgate. unfit for renovation and financially ruinous, be abandoned. when Sing Sing was completed in 1828, it took Newgate's last male prisoners (temporarily contracting the females out to New York City). The State's first prison was sold to New York City for use as a jail.

Writing 27 years earlier, Thomas Eddy had proudly predicted his new prison would "reflect lasting honor on the State; be come a durable monument of the wisdom, justice, and humanity of its legislators, more glorious than the most splendid achievements of conquerors or kings; and be remembered when the magnificent structures of folly and pride, with their founders are alike exterminated and forgotten."

Not a brick remains.

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