# Convicts breaking rocks? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 28, 2013, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482 "2013-10-28T20:28:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 60
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2018, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482/60 "2018-06-20T00:52:39Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Possibly, but that’s not really the reason why convicts were made to break rocks in the hot sun back in the day. Prison as a space for reforming and rehabilitating inmates is an idea that emerged sometime during the 50s (although efforts to make prison less horrible an experience had begun as early as the 20s). > > … Prison as a space for reforming and rehabilitating is an idea that goes back hundreds of years: > [@Question about imprisonment and jail sentences](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-imprisonment-and-jail-sentences/800121/11): > > I’m not sure how original the inovation was. HM Prison Shepton Mallet (closed 2013) was "established as a House of Correction in 1625, to comply with an Act of King James I in 1609 requiring that every county have such a House. " [HM Prison Shepton Mallet - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_Prison_Shepton_Mallet). The 1609 law replaced the law of ?? 1597 ??. Apparently penitentiary were a bit of a 1500’s thing that (in England) later became less of a thing aa they were replaced by deportation, until the loss of the American colonies interupted deportation. If anything, the idea of paying for crime by making a payment goes back even further. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicts-breaking-rocks/672482)._