It was built in a cell system to replace the old dormitory housing. Inmates in the cell system are allowed to leave their cells during the day to work in prison shops. This new system was then deemed the "Auburn system" and soon after became the standard for American prisons. In 1828, the New York City Commissioners of Bridewell and Almshouse bought the Blackwell Island so they could have facilities under their jurisdiction. This included the New York City Penitentiary. New York's first inmate to be electrocuted was done in 1890 at the Auburn prison. Many more prisons and county jails were built in the upcoming years to house the overcrowding of inmates in Greenwich and Auburn. .
Virginia, from the time of the fist settlement at Jamestown had depended upon corporal and capital punishment for its penal measures. Gradually Virginia began to use small county jails for sentences of confinement. After the Revolutionary War, Thomas Jefferson began to urge that Virginia construct a "penitentiary house" as was being done in Europe and other parts of the world. The General Assembly ignored Jefferson's ideas. Even then, it seemed that building prisons were not a popular governmental activity. In 1796, a wave of reform swept the legislature, and Benjamin Latrobe was engaged to design a penitentiary house. The facility which received its first prisoners in 1800 and was completed in 1804 was known by generations of Virginians as the Virginia State Penitentiary or the "Pen". Since then Virginia has opened many more correctional facilities. In 1942, statewide Probation and Parole Services were created under the new Virginia Parole Board and were shifted to the Department of Corrections on July 1, 1974.
It wasn't until the 1900's when Congress enacted legislation establishing the Federal Probation System. In 1929, the first paid US probation officer was appointed under the US Department of Justice.