Irish Marks System

In the mid-1800s, Great Britain was overwhelmed by a crisis in corrections. The American colonies, having declared their independence in 1776, were henceforth unavailable for use as a destination for transported prisoners. Using Australia as a substitute thereafter proved to be expensive and ineffective. Hulks—disease-ridden, decommissioned ships moored in various rivers—were abandoned as a housing option as simply inhumane and archaic. These circumstances created fertile conditions for limited experimentation at various sites within Britain's far-flung colonial empire. Such was the case when Captain Alexander Maconochie tried something new at Norfolk Island in the South Pacific in 1854, a “marks system.” Closer to home, Walter Crofton, employing some of the same concepts, is often credited with instituting reforms in Ireland in 1854. Accordingly, the system embodying these changes became known within the correctional community as the Irish marks system.

Some experts believe that Major Joshua Jebb, surveyor-general of the overall British prison system, was the real author of some of these reforms. In any case, he certainly allowed the “progressive stage system” to come into existence. The stages differed in various colonial locations and eventually led to their modification and use under the aegis of Zebulon Brockway, in the post–Civil War era at the Elmira Reformatory in upstate New York.