Benevolent Repression

Benevolent Repression

Author: Alexander W. Pisciotta

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 1994-07-01

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 0814767974

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The opening, in 1876, of the Elmira Reformatory marked the birth of the American adult reformatory movement and the introduction of a new approach to crime and the treatment of criminals. Hailed as a reform panacea and the humane solution to America's ongoing crisis of crime and social disorder, Elmira sparked an ideological revolution. Repression and punishment were supposedly out. Academic and vocational education, military drill, indeterminate sentencing and parole—"benevolent reform"—were now considered instrumental to instilling in prisoners a respect for God, law, and capitalism. Not so, says Al Pisciotta, in this highly original, startling, and revealing work. Drawing upon previously unexamined sources from over a half-dozen states and a decade of research, Pisciotta explodes the myth that Elmira and other institutions of "the new penology" represented a significant advance in the treatment of criminals and youthful offenders. The much-touted programs failed to achieve their goals; instead, prisoners, under Superintendent Zebulon Brockway, considered the Father of American Corrections, were whipped with rubber hoses and two-foot leather straps, restricted to bread and water in dark dungeons during months of solitary confinement, and brutally subjected to a wide range of other draconian psychological and physical abuses intended to pound them into submission. Escapes, riots, violence, drugs, suicide, arson, and rape were the order of the day in these prisons, hardly conducive to the transformation of "dangerous criminal classes into Christian gentleman," as was claimed. Reflecting the racism and sexism in the social order in general, the new penology also legitimized the repression of the lower classes. Highlighting the disparity between promise and practice in America's prisons, Pisciotta draws on seven inmate case histories to illustrate convincingly that the "March of Progress" was nothing more than a reversion to the ways of old. In short, the adult reformatory movement promised benevolent reform but delivered benevolent repression—a pattern that continues to this day. A vital contribution to the history of crime, corrections, and criminal justice, this book will also have a major impact on our thinking about contemporary corrections and issues surrounding crime, punishment, and social control.


Book Synopsis Benevolent Repression by : Alexander W. Pisciotta

Download or read book Benevolent Repression written by Alexander W. Pisciotta and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1994-07-01 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The opening, in 1876, of the Elmira Reformatory marked the birth of the American adult reformatory movement and the introduction of a new approach to crime and the treatment of criminals. Hailed as a reform panacea and the humane solution to America's ongoing crisis of crime and social disorder, Elmira sparked an ideological revolution. Repression and punishment were supposedly out. Academic and vocational education, military drill, indeterminate sentencing and parole—"benevolent reform"—were now considered instrumental to instilling in prisoners a respect for God, law, and capitalism. Not so, says Al Pisciotta, in this highly original, startling, and revealing work. Drawing upon previously unexamined sources from over a half-dozen states and a decade of research, Pisciotta explodes the myth that Elmira and other institutions of "the new penology" represented a significant advance in the treatment of criminals and youthful offenders. The much-touted programs failed to achieve their goals; instead, prisoners, under Superintendent Zebulon Brockway, considered the Father of American Corrections, were whipped with rubber hoses and two-foot leather straps, restricted to bread and water in dark dungeons during months of solitary confinement, and brutally subjected to a wide range of other draconian psychological and physical abuses intended to pound them into submission. Escapes, riots, violence, drugs, suicide, arson, and rape were the order of the day in these prisons, hardly conducive to the transformation of "dangerous criminal classes into Christian gentleman," as was claimed. Reflecting the racism and sexism in the social order in general, the new penology also legitimized the repression of the lower classes. Highlighting the disparity between promise and practice in America's prisons, Pisciotta draws on seven inmate case histories to illustrate convincingly that the "March of Progress" was nothing more than a reversion to the ways of old. In short, the adult reformatory movement promised benevolent reform but delivered benevolent repression—a pattern that continues to this day. A vital contribution to the history of crime, corrections, and criminal justice, this book will also have a major impact on our thinking about contemporary corrections and issues surrounding crime, punishment, and social control.

Benevolent Repression

Benevolent Repression

Author: Alexander W. Pisciotta

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 0814766382

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Drawing on sources in a dozen states and focusing on seven case studies, documents how the prison reform movement that began in 1876 quickly reverted to the previous standards of punishment, psychological and physical abuse, escapes, riots, suicide, drugs, arson, and rape. Argues that today's prisons, directly descended from those, still lay claim to the ideology of education and rehabilitation that was a myth from the beginning. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR


Book Synopsis Benevolent Repression by : Alexander W. Pisciotta

Download or read book Benevolent Repression written by Alexander W. Pisciotta and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on sources in a dozen states and focusing on seven case studies, documents how the prison reform movement that began in 1876 quickly reverted to the previous standards of punishment, psychological and physical abuse, escapes, riots, suicide, drugs, arson, and rape. Argues that today's prisons, directly descended from those, still lay claim to the ideology of education and rehabilitation that was a myth from the beginning. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Misrule and Reversals

Misrule and Reversals

Author: Rozaliya Yaneva

Publisher: Herbert Utz Verlag

Published: 2013-10-30

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 383164313X

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How do Christopher Marlowe’s plays relate to interpretations of carnival as being either a beneficial repression inspired by anxiety or a deliberate expression of resistance towards all that is established and permanent? Where can one place carnival in his dramatic works? Renaissance drama invited a consideration of various forms of collective life and while great religious festivities of the Catholic calendar were affected by Reformation efforts to control festivity and detach it from religious worship, festive energies on Marlowe`s stage seem to have persisted. This book views Doctor Faustus, Tamburlaine the Great, The Jew of Malta and Edward the Second through concepts of irreverence, clowning, the high and the low in culture, degradation, laughter and feasting while viewing the plays’ worlds in terms of misrule, inversion and reversal. Who are the clowns in the plays, is the time for revelries restricted and how do the principle of the grotesque and the forces of debasement work are some of the intriguing questions to be pursued.


Book Synopsis Misrule and Reversals by : Rozaliya Yaneva

Download or read book Misrule and Reversals written by Rozaliya Yaneva and published by Herbert Utz Verlag. This book was released on 2013-10-30 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How do Christopher Marlowe’s plays relate to interpretations of carnival as being either a beneficial repression inspired by anxiety or a deliberate expression of resistance towards all that is established and permanent? Where can one place carnival in his dramatic works? Renaissance drama invited a consideration of various forms of collective life and while great religious festivities of the Catholic calendar were affected by Reformation efforts to control festivity and detach it from religious worship, festive energies on Marlowe`s stage seem to have persisted. This book views Doctor Faustus, Tamburlaine the Great, The Jew of Malta and Edward the Second through concepts of irreverence, clowning, the high and the low in culture, degradation, laughter and feasting while viewing the plays’ worlds in terms of misrule, inversion and reversal. Who are the clowns in the plays, is the time for revelries restricted and how do the principle of the grotesque and the forces of debasement work are some of the intriguing questions to be pursued.

Contested Meanings

Contested Meanings

Author: Joseph R. Gusfield

Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 9780299149345

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The theme throughout Contested Meanings is the conflicting and changing ways society defines social problems. He emerges in the course of the book as a thoughtful and realistic social critic who looks beyond analyses of drinking as pathological behavior to consider the place of alcohol in American popular and leisure culture.


Book Synopsis Contested Meanings by : Joseph R. Gusfield

Download or read book Contested Meanings written by Joseph R. Gusfield and published by Univ of Wisconsin Press. This book was released on 1996 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The theme throughout Contested Meanings is the conflicting and changing ways society defines social problems. He emerges in the course of the book as a thoughtful and realistic social critic who looks beyond analyses of drinking as pathological behavior to consider the place of alcohol in American popular and leisure culture.

Breaking the Pendulum

Breaking the Pendulum

Author: Philip Goodman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-03-20

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0199976074

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The history of criminal justice in the U.S. is often described as a pendulum, swinging back and forth between strict punishment and lenient rehabilitation. While this view is common wisdom, it is wrong. In Breaking the Pendulum, Philip Goodman, Joshua Page, and Michelle Phelps systematically debunk the pendulum perspective, showing that it distorts how and why criminal justice changes. The pendulum model blinds us to the blending of penal orientations, policies, and practices, as well as the struggle between actors that shapes laws, institutions, and how we think about crime, punishment, and related issues. Through a re-analysis of more than two hundred years of penal history, starting with the rise of penitentiaries in the 19th Century and ending with ongoing efforts to roll back mass incarceration, the authors offer an alternative approach to conceptualizing penal development. Their agonistic perspective posits that struggle is the motor force of criminal justice history. Punishment expands, contracts, and morphs because of contestation between real people in real contexts, not a mechanical "swing" of the pendulum. This alternative framework is far more accurate and empowering than metaphors that ignore or downplay the importance of struggle in shaping criminal justice. This clearly written, engaging book is an invaluable resource for teachers, students, and scholars seeking to understand the past, present, and future of American criminal justice. By demonstrating the central role of struggle in generating major transformations, Breaking the Pendulum encourages combatants to keep fighting to change the system.


Book Synopsis Breaking the Pendulum by : Philip Goodman

Download or read book Breaking the Pendulum written by Philip Goodman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-20 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of criminal justice in the U.S. is often described as a pendulum, swinging back and forth between strict punishment and lenient rehabilitation. While this view is common wisdom, it is wrong. In Breaking the Pendulum, Philip Goodman, Joshua Page, and Michelle Phelps systematically debunk the pendulum perspective, showing that it distorts how and why criminal justice changes. The pendulum model blinds us to the blending of penal orientations, policies, and practices, as well as the struggle between actors that shapes laws, institutions, and how we think about crime, punishment, and related issues. Through a re-analysis of more than two hundred years of penal history, starting with the rise of penitentiaries in the 19th Century and ending with ongoing efforts to roll back mass incarceration, the authors offer an alternative approach to conceptualizing penal development. Their agonistic perspective posits that struggle is the motor force of criminal justice history. Punishment expands, contracts, and morphs because of contestation between real people in real contexts, not a mechanical "swing" of the pendulum. This alternative framework is far more accurate and empowering than metaphors that ignore or downplay the importance of struggle in shaping criminal justice. This clearly written, engaging book is an invaluable resource for teachers, students, and scholars seeking to understand the past, present, and future of American criminal justice. By demonstrating the central role of struggle in generating major transformations, Breaking the Pendulum encourages combatants to keep fighting to change the system.

Spirituality in Dark Places

Spirituality in Dark Places

Author: D. Jeffreys

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-03-12

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 1137311789

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Jeffreys explores the spiritual consequences and ethics of modern solitary confinement and emphasizes how solitary confinement damages our spiritual lives. He focuses particularly on how it destroys one's relationship to time and undermines our creativity, and proposes institutional changes in order to mitigate profound damage to prisoners.


Book Synopsis Spirituality in Dark Places by : D. Jeffreys

Download or read book Spirituality in Dark Places written by D. Jeffreys and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-03-12 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jeffreys explores the spiritual consequences and ethics of modern solitary confinement and emphasizes how solitary confinement damages our spiritual lives. He focuses particularly on how it destroys one's relationship to time and undermines our creativity, and proposes institutional changes in order to mitigate profound damage to prisoners.

Discretionary Justice

Discretionary Justice

Author: Carolyn Strange

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 2016-12-20

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 1479810908

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The pardon is an act of mercy, tied to the divine right of kings. Why did New York retain this mode of discretionary justice after the Revolution? And how did governors’ use of this prerogative change with the advent of the penitentiary and the introduction of parole? This book answers these questions by mining previously unexplored evidence held in official pardon registers, clemency files, prisoner aid association reports and parole records. This is the first book to analyze the histories of mercy and parole through the same lens, as related but distinct forms of discretionary decision-making. It draws on governors’ public papers and private correspondence to probe their approach to clemency, and it uses qualitative and quantitative methods to profile petitions for mercy, highlighting controversial cases that stirred public debate. Political pressure to render the use of discretion more certain and less personal grew stronger over the nineteenth century, peaking during constitutional conventionsand reaching its height in the Progressive Era. Yet, New York’s legislators left the power to pardon in the governor’s hands, where it remains today. Unlike previous works that portray parole as the successor to the pardon, this book shows that reliance upon and faith in discretion has proven remarkably resilient, even in the state that led the world toward penal modernity.


Book Synopsis Discretionary Justice by : Carolyn Strange

Download or read book Discretionary Justice written by Carolyn Strange and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2016-12-20 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The pardon is an act of mercy, tied to the divine right of kings. Why did New York retain this mode of discretionary justice after the Revolution? And how did governors’ use of this prerogative change with the advent of the penitentiary and the introduction of parole? This book answers these questions by mining previously unexplored evidence held in official pardon registers, clemency files, prisoner aid association reports and parole records. This is the first book to analyze the histories of mercy and parole through the same lens, as related but distinct forms of discretionary decision-making. It draws on governors’ public papers and private correspondence to probe their approach to clemency, and it uses qualitative and quantitative methods to profile petitions for mercy, highlighting controversial cases that stirred public debate. Political pressure to render the use of discretion more certain and less personal grew stronger over the nineteenth century, peaking during constitutional conventionsand reaching its height in the Progressive Era. Yet, New York’s legislators left the power to pardon in the governor’s hands, where it remains today. Unlike previous works that portray parole as the successor to the pardon, this book shows that reliance upon and faith in discretion has proven remarkably resilient, even in the state that led the world toward penal modernity.

Capital and Convict

Capital and Convict

Author: Henry Kamerling

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2017-11-28

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 0813940567

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Both in the popular imagination and in academic discourse, North and South are presented as fundamentally divergent penal systems in the aftermath of the Civil War, a difference mapped onto larger perceived cultural disparities between the two regions. The South’s post Civil War embrace of chain gangs and convict leasing occupies such a prominent position in the nation’s imagination that it has come to represent one of the region’s hallmark differences from the North. The regions are different, the argument goes, because they punish differently. Capital and Convict challenges this assumption by offering a comparative study of Illinois’s and South Carolina’s formal state penal systems in the fifty years after the Civil War. Henry Kamerling argues that although punishment was racially inflected both during Reconstruction and after, shared, nonracial factors defined both states' penal systems throughout this period. The similarities in the lived experiences of inmates in both states suggest that the popular focus on the racial characteristics of southern punishment has shielded us from an examination of important underlying factors that prove just as central—if not more so—in shaping the realities of crime and punishment throughout the United States.


Book Synopsis Capital and Convict by : Henry Kamerling

Download or read book Capital and Convict written by Henry Kamerling and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2017-11-28 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Both in the popular imagination and in academic discourse, North and South are presented as fundamentally divergent penal systems in the aftermath of the Civil War, a difference mapped onto larger perceived cultural disparities between the two regions. The South’s post Civil War embrace of chain gangs and convict leasing occupies such a prominent position in the nation’s imagination that it has come to represent one of the region’s hallmark differences from the North. The regions are different, the argument goes, because they punish differently. Capital and Convict challenges this assumption by offering a comparative study of Illinois’s and South Carolina’s formal state penal systems in the fifty years after the Civil War. Henry Kamerling argues that although punishment was racially inflected both during Reconstruction and after, shared, nonracial factors defined both states' penal systems throughout this period. The similarities in the lived experiences of inmates in both states suggest that the popular focus on the racial characteristics of southern punishment has shielded us from an examination of important underlying factors that prove just as central—if not more so—in shaping the realities of crime and punishment throughout the United States.

Raising the Living Dead

Raising the Living Dead

Author: Alberto Ortiz Díaz

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2023-03-08

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 0226824519

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"Raising the Living Dead is a new history of Puerto Rico's carceral rehabilitation system in the middle decades of the twentieth century that brings to life the interactions of incarcerated people, their wider social networks, and health care professionals. The book addresses key issues in the history of prisons and the histories of medicine and belief, including how prisoners' different racial, class, and cultural identities shaped their incarceration and how professionals living in a colonial society dealt with the challenge of rehabilitating prisoners for citizenship. The main idea of the book is that, in the region, multiple communities of care came together both inside and outside of prisons to imagine and imperfectly enact solution-oriented cultures of rehabilitation. Specifically, Alberto Ortiz Díaz argues that scientific and humanistic approaches to well-being were deliberately fused to raise the "living dead" (an expression that reemerged in the modern Caribbean to refer to prisoners). These reform groups sought to raise incarcerated people physically, mentally, socially, spiritually, and civically. The book is based on deep, original archival research into the Oso Blanco (White Bear) penitentiary in Puerto Rico, yet it situates its study within Puerto Rico's broader carceral archipelago and other Caribbean prisons. The agents of this history include not only physical health professionals, but also their mental health counterparts (psychologists and psychiatrists), social workers, spiritual and religious practitioners, and, of course, the prisoners and their families. By following all these groups and emphasizing the interpersonal exercise of power, Ortiz Díaz is able to tell a story that goes beyond structural and social control debates. Raising the Living Dead is not just about convicts, their immediate interlocutors, and their contexts, however, but about how together these open a window into the history of social uplift projects within the (neo)colonial societies of the Caribbean. There is no book like this in Caribbean historiography and few examine these themes in the larger literature on the history of prisons"--


Book Synopsis Raising the Living Dead by : Alberto Ortiz Díaz

Download or read book Raising the Living Dead written by Alberto Ortiz Díaz and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2023-03-08 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Raising the Living Dead is a new history of Puerto Rico's carceral rehabilitation system in the middle decades of the twentieth century that brings to life the interactions of incarcerated people, their wider social networks, and health care professionals. The book addresses key issues in the history of prisons and the histories of medicine and belief, including how prisoners' different racial, class, and cultural identities shaped their incarceration and how professionals living in a colonial society dealt with the challenge of rehabilitating prisoners for citizenship. The main idea of the book is that, in the region, multiple communities of care came together both inside and outside of prisons to imagine and imperfectly enact solution-oriented cultures of rehabilitation. Specifically, Alberto Ortiz Díaz argues that scientific and humanistic approaches to well-being were deliberately fused to raise the "living dead" (an expression that reemerged in the modern Caribbean to refer to prisoners). These reform groups sought to raise incarcerated people physically, mentally, socially, spiritually, and civically. The book is based on deep, original archival research into the Oso Blanco (White Bear) penitentiary in Puerto Rico, yet it situates its study within Puerto Rico's broader carceral archipelago and other Caribbean prisons. The agents of this history include not only physical health professionals, but also their mental health counterparts (psychologists and psychiatrists), social workers, spiritual and religious practitioners, and, of course, the prisoners and their families. By following all these groups and emphasizing the interpersonal exercise of power, Ortiz Díaz is able to tell a story that goes beyond structural and social control debates. Raising the Living Dead is not just about convicts, their immediate interlocutors, and their contexts, however, but about how together these open a window into the history of social uplift projects within the (neo)colonial societies of the Caribbean. There is no book like this in Caribbean historiography and few examine these themes in the larger literature on the history of prisons"--

Professional Lives of Community Corrections Officers: The Invisible Side of Reentry

Professional Lives of Community Corrections Officers: The Invisible Side of Reentry

Author: Faith E. Lutze

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Published: 2013-11-07

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 1483322467

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One of the first contemporary works to bring together research focused on community corrections officers, Professional Lives of Community Corrections Officers: The Invisible Side of Reentry, by Faith E. Lutze, helps readers understand the importance of community corrections officers to the success of the criminal justice system. The author brings the important work of these officers out from the shadows of the prison and into the light of informed policymaking, demonstrating how their work connects to the broader political, economic, and social context. Arguing that they are "street-level boundary spanners" who are in the best position to lead effective reentry initiatives built on interagency collaboration, the author shows how community corrections officers can effectively lead a fluid response to reentry that is inclusive of control, support, and treatment. This supplement is ideal for community corrections or probation and parole courses to supplement core textbooks.


Book Synopsis Professional Lives of Community Corrections Officers: The Invisible Side of Reentry by : Faith E. Lutze

Download or read book Professional Lives of Community Corrections Officers: The Invisible Side of Reentry written by Faith E. Lutze and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2013-11-07 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the first contemporary works to bring together research focused on community corrections officers, Professional Lives of Community Corrections Officers: The Invisible Side of Reentry, by Faith E. Lutze, helps readers understand the importance of community corrections officers to the success of the criminal justice system. The author brings the important work of these officers out from the shadows of the prison and into the light of informed policymaking, demonstrating how their work connects to the broader political, economic, and social context. Arguing that they are "street-level boundary spanners" who are in the best position to lead effective reentry initiatives built on interagency collaboration, the author shows how community corrections officers can effectively lead a fluid response to reentry that is inclusive of control, support, and treatment. This supplement is ideal for community corrections or probation and parole courses to supplement core textbooks.