The silent penitentiary system collapsed from cost and overcrowding.

Evidence

Solitary confinement, hard labor, strict discipline, regimentation, and total silence: these were at the very heart of penal theory, developed in the first half of the nineteenth century. The result was, in theory, transformation of the criminal’s mind and character. But the states themselves did not do their duty (so to speak), and the classic penitentiary system did not last. Massachusetts dropped the silent system as early as the 1840s. Penitentiaries cost a lot of money to build and maintain. The states never provided enough cells, and when cells had two prisoners, or more, the silent system was impossible. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3410

Categorization

• XREF: Links to the reader’s listening-attention and silence threads — penal silence as enforced control paralleling earlier material on silence as discipline. — connects to: The prison’s failures were denounced at its very inception — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 401

Broader Connections

• The prison’s failures were denounced at its very inception #expands (0.72) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 401