The Oxford History of the Prison The Practice of Punishment in Western Society

by Morris, Norval; Rothman, David J.

• ISBN13: 9780195118148
• ISBN10: 0195118146
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1997-12-18
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The word "prison" immediately evokes stark images: forbidding walls spiked with watchtowers; inmates confined to cramped cells for hours on end; the suspicious eyes of armed guards. They seem to be the inevitable and permanent marks of confinement, as though prisons were a timeless institutionstretching from medieval stone dungeons to the current era of steel boxes. But centuries of development and debate lie behind the prison as we now know it--a rich history that reveals how our ideas of crime and practices of punishment have changed over time. In The Oxford History of the Prison, a team of distinguished scholars offers a vivid account of the rise and development of this critical institution. Penalties other than incarceration were once much more common, from such bizarre death sentences as the Roman practice of drowning convicts in sacksfilled with animals to a frequent reliance on the scaffold and on to forms of public shaming (such as the classic stocks of colonial America). The first decades of the nineteenth century saw the rise of the full-blown prison system--and along with it, the idea of prison reform. Alexis de Tocquevilleoriginally came to America to write a report on its widely acclaimed prison system. The authors trace the persistent tension between the desire to punish and the hope for rehabilitation, recounting the institution's evolution from the rowdy and squalid English jails of the 1700s, in which prisoners and visitors ate and drank together; to the sober and stark nineteenth-centurypenitentiaries, whose inmates were forbidden to speak or even to see one another; and finally to the "big houses" of the current American prison system, in which prisoners are as overwhelmed by intense boredom as by the threat of violence. The text also provides a gripping and personal look at thesocial world of prisoners and their keepers over the centuries. In addition, thematic chapters explore in-depth a variety of special institutions and other important aspects of prison history, including the jail, the reform school, the women's prison, political imprisonment, and prison andliterature. Fascinating, provocative, and authoritative, The Oxford History of the Prison offers a deep, informed perspective on the rise and development of one of the central features of modern society--capturing the debates that rage from generation to generation on the proper response to crime.

Author Biography

Norval Morris is the Julius Kreeger Professor of Law and Criminology at the University of Chicago. His numerous books include The Brothel Boy and Other Parables of the Law and Between Prison and Probation. David J. Rothman is Professor of History, Bernard Schoenberg Professor of Social Medicine, and Director of the Center for the Study of Society and Medicine at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is the author of The Discovery of the Asylum, Conscience and Convenience, and Strangers at the Bedside.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. vii
Prisons in History	p. 1
Prison Before the Prison: The Ancient and Medieval Worlds	p. 3
Acknowledgments	p. 41
Bibliographic Note	p. 41
the Body and the State: Early Modern Europe	p. 44
Acknowledgments	p. 69
Bibliographic Note	p. 69
the Well-Ordered Prison: England, 1780-1865	p. 71
Bibliographic Note	p. 98
Acknowledgments	p. 98
Perfecting the Prison: United States, 1789-1865	p. 100
Bibliographic Note	p. 116
the Victorian Prison: England, 1865-1965	p. 117
Bibliographic Note	p. 148
the Failure of Reform: United States, 1865-1965	p. 151
Acknowledgments	p. 175
Bibliographic Note	p. 176
the Prison on the Continent: Europe, 1865-1965	p. 178
Bibliographic Note	p. 200
the Contemporary Prison: 1965-Present	p. 202
Bibliographic Note	p. 230
Themes and Variations	p. 233
the Australian Experience: The Convict Colony	p. 235
Bibliographic Note	p. 264
Local Justice: The Jail	p. 266
Bibliographic Note	p. 292
Wayward Sisters: The Prison for Women	p. 295
Bibliographic Note	p. 323
Delinquent Children: The Juvenile Reform School	p. 325
Bibliographic Note	p. 347
Confining Dissent: The Political Prison	p. 350
Bibliographic Note	p. 380
The Literature of Confinement	p. 381
Works Cited	p. 403
Acknowledgments	p. 403
Contributors	p. 407
Index	p. 411
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