How did the Enlightenment Age effect corrections?

Answer 1

"From the Middle Ages to the American Revolution, corrections consisted primarily of galley slavery, imprisonment, transportation, corporal punishment, and death. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, the Enlightenment brought changes in penal policy. Rather than stressing physical punishment of the offender, influential thinkers such as Beccaria, Bentham, and Howard (see below) sought methods for reforming offenders. These changes were first proposed in Europe and fully developed later in America."

Cesare Beccaria --
Cesare, Marquis of Beccaria or Cesare, marchese di Beccaria-Bonesana (March 11, 1738 – November 28, 1794) was an Italian philosopher and politician best known for his treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764), which condemned torture and the death penalty and was a founding work in the field of criminology.

Apart from condemning the death penalty (on two grounds: first, because the state does not possess the right to take lives; and secondly, because capital punishment is neither a useful nor a necessary form of punishment), Beccaria developed in his treatise a number of innovative and influential principles: punishment had a preventive (deterrent), not a retributive, function; punishment should be proportionate to the crime committed; the certainty of punishment, not its severity, would achieve the preventive effect; procedures of criminal convictions should be public; and finally, in order to be effective, punishment should be prompt. He also argued against gun control laws

Jeremy Bentham --
(February 15, 1748 O.S. (February 26, 1748 N.S.) – June 6, 1832) was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He was a political radical and a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law. He is best known as an early advocate of utilitarianism and animal rights who influenced the development of liberalism.

Argued for the treatment and reform of prisoners.

John Howard --
(1726-1790) was an English prison reformer whose book, The State of the Prisons in England and Wales, was a major force towards passage of the Penitentiary Act of 1779 by the House of Commons.