From Pillory to Penitentiary: The Rise of Criminal Incarceration in Early Massachusetts

Hirsch, Adam J.

doi:10.2307/1288577

Cited by 10 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…The escalating incidence of crime engendered substantial apprehensions, catalyzing changes that were propelled not exclusively by humanitarian ideals. As noted by Hirsch, citing the instance of Massachusetts, the establishment of new penitentiaries was not confined solely to states harboring influential philanthropic entities, religious organizations, or reformist advocates (Hirsch, 1982).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Controversial Questions About the Ideological Origins of the Pennsylvania System of Prison Discipline

Sokalska

2023

Legal horizons

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The present article delves into the origins and theoretical underpinnings of the carceral model of corrective punishment at Walnut Street Prison and the system of solitary confinement at Eastern State Penitentiary. The central research question to the extent to which the ideology advocated by the Society of Friends served as a formative influence in shaping the Pennsylvania system of prison discipline and its implementation in practice, as frequently acknowledged in historiography. To probe this inquiry, we have resorted to primary source materials and literature addressing the historical trajectory of penal institutions in Pennsylvania.It has been ascertained that the contention positing the pivotal involvement of the Society of Friends in the reformatory initiative gained traction primarily within the European penitentiary discourse on penology, through accounts of American prisons penned by La Rochefoucauld, Niemcewicz, Beaumont, and Tocqueville. The carceral model at Walnut Street Prison, characterized by distinctive attributes encompassing segregated confinement, hard labor, distinct treatment protocols grave for the most egregious of offenders, and administrative oversight by the Board of Inspectors, largely adhered to the English carceral model of corrective punishment. The conviction in the redemptive potential of seclusion was intrinsic to both religious and materialist penitentiary discourses of the era. Therefore, the ideology of the Society of Friends was not determinative here.The establishment of the system of separate and solitary confinement during the 1820s was instigated by the challenges encountered within the carceral model of Walnut Street Prison. It was a complex process and cannot be reduced to the realization of one religious group's idea: it took into account the practical experience of prisons in Pennsylvania and other states, the theoretical research, and analyzed statistical data. The reform was predated by active public discourse and scholarly dialogues appraising the merits and limitations inherent in diverse models of prison discipline.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Controversial Questions About the Ideological Origins of the Pennsylvania System of Prison Discipline

Sokalska

2023

Legal horizons

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“…However, these remained isolated episodes. In the same year, Chief Justice Thomas Hutchinson of the Massachusetts Superior Court felt he must remind jurors that the jail was ''not intended as a Punishment, it is only to keep Offenders for Trial, or after Trial till Sentence is fulfilled'' (cited in Hirsch, 1982Hirsch, : 1187.…”

Section: Colonial Americamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additionally, he had toured the Dutch workhouses (Lewis, 1922: 10), which became models throughout Europe as predecessors to actual prisons (Spierenburg, 1987) and informed his notion of combining incarceration with hard labor. Likewise, Massachusetts's Puritan founders had brought with them England's version of the workhouse, which incarcerated convicted vagrants at hard labor (Hirsch, 1982). The idea of the workhouse spread to a few other colonies as well.…”

Section: Colonial Americamentioning

confidence: 99%

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The prehistory of innovation: A longer view of penal change

Rubin

2017

Punishment & Society

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New penal technologies, however innovative, rarely emerge fully formed, but we currently lack a theoretical appreciation of the lengthy, messy process by which penal innovations develop. Indeed, most studies of penal change focus on the conditions surrounding the emergence of a particularly successful innovation, a model of punishment whose widespread diffusion is indicative of significant change. This paper extends our analytical focus by examining the legacy of an innovation’s prehistory, the ideational period in which an idea is created at the margins of criminal justice before manifesting on a wider scale. This paper traces the history, and influence, of American uses of penal incarceration before Pennsylvania’s famous Walnut Street Prison, often referred to as the country’s first prison. This prehistory complicates the notion of innovation by identifying significant precursors. Ultimately, recognizing penal innovations’ prehistory challenges macro-level theories of penal change, which largely overlook those causes that significantly predate the “moment” of innovation.

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“…American colonial criminal justice has been described as retributive, and deterrence only slowly came to be a common rationale for punishing offenders (but see Hirsch, 1987, for opposing views). Indeed, throughout the 1800s and early 1900s many criminal justice agents entertained the idea that punishment can somehow reform offenders by promoting a moral reassessment.…”

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confidence: 99%

Toward Theories about Criminal Justice

Gibbs¹

1988

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

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Theories about criminal justice are needed because of the important social policy implications of this area of study. There are three major questions which must be addressed by theorists as part of the study of criminal justice:(1) what are the aims of criminal justice agents? (2) what is the efficacy of criminal justice? (3) what are the consequences of criminal justice? Theories which have been proposed to answer these questions are reviewed and possible policy implications of these theories are explored.People seek answers to diverse questions about criminal justice, and defensible answers require a theory. Accordingly, the principal concern here is this question: What theories about criminal justice are needed and how can their pursuit be furthered?The Aims of Criminal Justice Because of their preoccupation with latent functions, many social and behavioral scientists are reluctant to view criminal justice in terms of aims or goals. The alternative view is that criminal laws are enacted and enforced by faceless societal agents, and the purposes of those agents are regarded as irrelevant or rarely realized. That view is not conducive to research on the efficacy of criminal law as a means of controlling human behavior. Rather, the view suggests only two questions about criminal justice. First, what are its causes? Second, what are its consequences? Both questions are too general for a complete answer or even to guide research, and aims cannot be equated with the apodictic consequences of criminal justice. The very idea of aims entails the notion of intention and is implied when one speaks of crime prevention. However, the subject transcends crime prevention; and it is best expressed by the first of three major questions in the study of criminal justice: What are the aims of criminal justice agents? at RMIT UNIVERSITY on July 15, 2015 ccj.sagepub.com Downloaded from

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From Pillory to Penitentiary: The Rise of Criminal Incarceration in Early Massachusetts

Cited by 10 publications

References 1 publication

Controversial Questions About the Ideological Origins of the Pennsylvania System of Prison Discipline

Controversial Questions About the Ideological Origins of the Pennsylvania System of Prison Discipline

The prehistory of innovation: A longer view of penal change

Toward Theories about Criminal Justice

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