<P> Imprisonment as a form of criminal punishment only became widespread in the United States just before the American Revolution , though penal incarceration efforts had been ongoing in England since as early as the 1500s , and prisons in the form of dungeons and various detention facilities had existed since long before then . Prison building efforts in the United States came in three major waves . The first began during the Jacksonian Era and led to widespread use of imprisonment and rehabilitative labor as the primary penalty for most crimes in nearly all states by the time of the American Civil War . The second began after the Civil War and gained momentum during the Progressive Era , bringing a number of new mechanisms -- such as parole , probation , and indeterminate sentencing -- into the mainstream of American penal practice . Finally , since the early 1970s , the United States has engaged in a historically unprecedented expansion of its imprisonment systems at both the federal and state level . Since 1973 , the number of incarcerated persons in the United States has increased five-fold , and in a given year 7,000,000 people were under the supervision or control of correctional services in the United States . These periods of prison construction and reform produced major changes in the structure of prison systems and their missions , the responsibilities of federal and state agencies for administering and supervising them , as well as the legal and political status of prisoners themselves . </P>
<P> Imprisonment as a form of criminal punishment only became widespread in the United States just before the American Revolution , though penal incarceration efforts had been ongoing in England since as early as the 1500s , and prisons in the form of dungeons and various detention facilities had existed since long before then . Prison building efforts in the United States came in three major waves . The first began during the Jacksonian Era and led to widespread use of imprisonment and rehabilitative labor as the primary penalty for most crimes in nearly all states by the time of the American Civil War . The second began after the Civil War and gained momentum during the Progressive Era , bringing a number of new mechanisms -- such as parole , probation , and indeterminate sentencing -- into the mainstream of American penal practice . Finally , since the early 1970s , the United States has engaged in a historically unprecedented expansion of its imprisonment systems at both the federal and state level . Since 1973 , the number of incarcerated persons in the United States has increased five-fold , and in a given year 7,000,000 people were under the supervision or control of correctional services in the United States . These periods of prison construction and reform produced major changes in the structure of prison systems and their missions , the responsibilities of federal and state agencies for administering and supervising them , as well as the legal and political status of prisoners themselves . </P>
when did the prison population begin to rise dramatically
when did the prison population begin to rise dramatically
Since 1973
Since 1973