An idea stolen from Germany in the 1850s. The history of America is deeply entwined in our correctional system history. 

Prison: a building in which people are legally held as a punishment for a crime they have committed or while awaiting trial- Oxford

Asylum: an institution offering shelter and support to people who are mentally ill- Oxford

“I believe that very few men are capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment…I am only the more convinced that there is a depth of terrible endurance in which none but the sufferers themselves can fathom, and which no man has a right to inflict upon his fellow creature.” Charles Dickens about East Penn