NCJ Number
167516
Date Published
1995
Length
27 pages
Annotation
The history of European prisons between 1865 and 1965 is a story of continual change that paralleled cultural, economic, political, and social realities.
Abstract
European prisons were the byproduct of pressure to reform existing methods of punishment and to find more enlightened, humane, and effective responses to the crime problem. Almost as soon as the prison itself became central to punishment, it became the focus of reform efforts. Many different prison reform movements appeared throughout the 1865-1965 period that advocated various methods to reach distinct goals. The movements took their inspiration from the same sources: advances in new fields of knowledge, including criminology and sociology; changes in beliefs about causes and proper treatment of deviance; and shifts in social attitudes toward crime and criminals. Despite distinct national institutions, prison systems that developed in Europe during the 19th century were remarkably similar. Shared ideas about how to create secure, sanitary, and rehabilitative prisons produced similar prison populations, prison architectures, prison work systems, and inmate subcultures. Toward the end of the 19th century, imprisonment became the subject of increasing criticism and gradually lost the absolute position it had gained as the dominant form of punishment. In the place of imprisonment, many European countries established such noncustodial punishments as suspended sentences and supervised parole. Penal philosophies in Europe began to diverge significantly in the 20th century. The development of nonincarcerative options continued energetically in some countries, while other countries aggressively expanded their prison systems. Penal reforms in the period after World War II, the link between treatment and punishment, and the role of prisons in rehabilitation and control are examined. References and photographs