This is not a question of about parroted nonsense and cultural norms. I mean what end product do they produce that justifies their existence in the first place.
I’m physically disabled and have been living in a prison like situation for nearly 11 years. How does my situation balance into the ethics of prisons? I’m on a path to homelessness and a premature death due to institutionalized neglect and abuse from US institutions. Criminals are housed and fed in exchange for similar isolation, abuse, danger, insurmountable debt, and a largely unemployable and destitute future. These seem to conflict in ethics.
I found https://daily.jstor.org/the-invention-of-incarceration/ by using https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=punishment+before+prison&ia=web
My assumption before even reading that was: I expect it’s because people wanted a punishment that wasn’t a monetary fine, corporal punishment, enslavement, death, or “death but we’ll pretend to not see you running away, and we might pardon you in 10 years, but if we see you before then we’ll kill you” (exile). I knew those were the only punishments in ancient Rome (and people weren’t held for long before facing a trial), and it seems that not much had changed until the idea of long term incarceration was conceived: https://romanempiretimes.com/crime-and-punishment-in-ancient-rome-justice-and-inequality/ https://factsanddetails.com/world/cat56/sub408/entry-6360.html