You have asked a very good question about a very unpleasant subject. Up through the 1790s, the penalty for most crimes was not a term in jail or prison, but physical or corporal punishements that caused either pain or humiliation. For crimes such as stealing or assault and battery (attacking and hurting another), convicted criminals were whipped in public or branded with a hot iron on the forehead. Counterfeiters were whipped and had their ears nailed to the pillory (whipping post).

For less serious offenses, such as public drunkenness, offenders were sentenced to stand on the gallows (where murderers were hanged) or tied to the pillory for several hours. All punishments were carried out in public, to make the offenders feel ashamed and to let others know what happened to those who broke the law. Quite a few parents took their children to see these punishments, hoping that the young people would be frightened enough to stay out of trouble. (I would certainly have been scared!) Jails were mostly used to keep people confined before their trials, although a few criminals received sentences of several months to a year.

Beginning in the 1790s, corporal punishments began to disappear. Many people believed that the old-fashioned forms of punishment did not make criminals less likely to commit crimes again. They also believed that these very public penalties were too cruel and barbaric for modern, civilized Americans. They argued that people should have to pay fines for minor offenses, and for major offenses should be punished by terms in jail, where they would be forced to think about the bad choices they had made and would then "go straight."

State authorities then began to change the laws and built prisons where criminals could be sent to serve their terms. For a while, both kinds of penalties were handed out by the courts, but by the 1830s, all the old punishments were abolished. These prisons were very unpleasant places. Prisoners were forced to work hard - sometimes breaking stones with pickaxes - and often were not allowed to speak to anyone but their jailers.

For the most serious offenses, there was the death penalty. In Massachusetts, for example, there were several capital (death penalty) crimes: murder, rape, armed robbery, arson of an occupied house at night, and armed burglary of an occupied house at night. All of these crimes were punished by hanging until 1839, when some of them were made punishable by long prison terms instead. By 1852, only murder was punishable by death. Until the 1830s, all hangings were carried out in public, and often thousands of people attended. After 1840, the New England states stopped executing criminals in public.

Well, T.H., this look at crime and punishment in the past has not been a pretty picture, but I'm afraid that it isn't really much prettier today. I guess the moral of the story is still that "Crime doesn't pay."