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I. Prison Reform
- a. Increase in crimeà rise in arrests
- b. 1820s: indiscriminate use of capital punishment, even for crimes against property, was increasingly being viewed as ineffective and was replaced by imprisonment
- i. Although Brits shipped convicted people of serious offenses to their colony of Australia, this slowed when colonists objectedà incarceration
- a. Prisons isolated criminals from society but several reformers questioned this, especially when prisoners were subjected to harsh and humiliating work as punishment
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1830s
- a. 1830s: European governments were seeking ways to reform their penal systems
- b. Motivated by desire to both punish and rehabilitate and transform criminals into new persons, the Brits and French sent missions to US to examine how American systems accomplished goal
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After examining it
- i. After examining it, both French and Brits constructed prisons on Walnut Street model with separate cells that isolated prisoners from each other
- ii. At Petite Roquette in France and Pentonville in Britain, prisoners wore leather masks during exercise and sat in separate stalls when in chapel
- iii. Solitary confinement forced prisoners to examine consciencesà greater remorseà change evil ways
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As prison populations increased
- a. As prison populations increased, solitary confinement= expensive/ less feasible
- i. French returned to custom of sending prisoners to French Guiana to handle overload
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Prison reform
- a. Prison reform and police forces geared to creation of more disciplined society
- i. Disturbed by upheavals associated with revolutions and social discontent wrought by industrialization and urbanization, the ruling elites sought to impose some order on society
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