NCJ Number
101909
Date Published
1986
Length
279 pages
Annotation
This detailed study of the conditions of local prison life and administration in Lancashire County, England, in the era in which the modern prison was created (1700-1850) tests whether prison reform dynamics conformed with radical criminologists' (Foucault and Ignatieff) view of prison as a capitalist technique for controlling the noncompliant labor class.
Abstract
The study examines the Lancashire prison system before reform, factors that prompted local administrators to undertake prison reform, and the nature of the reforms. Also reviewed are the political, economic, and social context that shaped the reforms as well as the type of prison system created by the reforms. Although the prison reforms in Lancashire did not have the promised effect of rehabilitating inmates, they did improve inmate comfort, security, and health. The radical historians have oversimplified reformers' motives (i.e., to increase the effectiveness of labor class control). Neither was reform, however, motivated purely by a desire to benefit inmates and society. Each group pushing for reform was motivated by a mixture of self-interest and altruism. The radical historians are correct in noting that prison reform deluded the public into believing that prison is rehabilitative. Such an impression may have blinded policymakers to the importance of developing alternative rehabilitative structures. Chapter notes, document sources, and subject index.