NCJ Number
137499
Date Published
1991
Length
352 pages
Annotation
This book applies the process-oriented approach to the history of penal systems in Europe from the sixteenth century. The process-oriented approach holds that changes in punishment, repression, and discipline constitute a series of phases in a long-term development.
Abstract
Unlike most historians who date the advent of imprisonment as a major judicial sanction from the nineteenth century, this author describes the use of prisons as disciplinary institutions and penal options in European societies from the late sixteenth century. While focusing on the evolution of prisons in the Netherlands, Germany, and France, the author also discusses Europe as a whole. Two major themes which are pursued in the bulk of the book center around forced labor and the policies of the authorities together with the balance between tendencies toward concentration and differentiation within the prison system. The daily lives of prisoners during various historical eras are described, and the long-term nature of change in prisons and the societal conception of prisoners as persons who had broken with their families are explored.