Prison Versus Western Australia: Which Worked Best, the Australian Penal Colony or the English Convict Prison System?

Abstract

Between 1850 and 1868, a natural experiment in punishment took place. Men convicted of similar crimes could serve their sentence of penal servitude either in Britain or in Australia. For historians and social scientists, this offers the prospect of addressing a key question posed over 200 years ago by the philosopher, penal theorist and reformer Jeremy Bentham when he authored a lengthy letter entitled ‘Panopticon versus New South Wales: Or, the Panopticon Penitentiary System, and the Penal Colonization System, Compared’. This article answers the underlying tenet of Bentham’s question, ‘Which was best prison or transportation?’ by applying two efficiency tests. The first tests whether UK convicts or Australian convicts had higher rates of reconviction, and the second explores the speed to reconviction.

Digital Crime Histories and Developing a Public Pedagogy of Criminal Justice

“…Likewise, Gardner (2010) cautioned that increased access to primary sources might encourage members of the public to use the past to reinforce their own preconceptions and prejudices. For those researching their family's convict ancestry, survivor bias-whereby their ancestors are likely to be among those who desist and rehabilitate themselves-may exacerbate this (Godfrey 2019). Coupled with the white Western bias in the digitisation of records, this has the potential to distort views of the structural barriers that individuals, especially minorities, today face in their encounters with the criminal justice system (Roscoe 2022).…”

Créer une prison panoptique : Le cas de la prison de Fremantle, 1831-1841

“…31 It should be noted, however, that not all prisoners carried out the entirety of their sentences in Fremantle Gaol as the colony practised transportation to the Australian penal colonies of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land. 32 Before investigating the panoptic qualities of the building itself, the location of the prison deserves mentioning as Bentham argues a prison needs to be visible to awaken a sense of terror by emitting a sense of seclusion, restraint and a sense of removal of hope to the wider population. 33 The Fremantle Gaol fulfils this requirement as its position atop of Arthur Head means it towered over the colony.…”