Tale of "Correctional Redemption" (From Images of Crime: Representations of Crime and the Criminal in Science, the Arts and the Media, P 289-307, 2001, Hans-Jorg Albrecht, Afroditi Koukoutsaki, et al, eds. -- See NCJ-192094)

• NCJ Number: 192103
• Author(s): Massimo Pavarini
• Date Published: 2001
• Length: 19 pages
• Sale Source: Max-Planck-Institute Fur Auslandisches und Internationales Strafrecht
• Publication Format: Book (Softbound)
• Publication Type: Historical Overview
• Language: English
• Country: Germany (Unified)

Annotation

This article comments on the illustrative representation of sentences, based on official pictorial records from Italian prisons.

Abstract

The photographic archives of Italian prisons include pictures from as recently as the 1970's and others that go back to the end of the 19th century. This article includes photos that seem to pertain most to the reconstruction of the iconographic representation of correctional ideology. Penitentiary photography does not objectify prison, i.e. what it actually is. The article claims that a history of prison ends up being part of the broader history of hypocrisy: it has to do with the censoring of obscene words and indecent sights, with the concealment of feelings of propriety relevant to the manifestations of human corporeality. Prison photography is part of the strategy designed to conceal the obscenity of modern punishment. In a historical perspective, penitentiary photography is a reliable source for those interested in the "ideological" history of punishment: it reveals more about philosophers' thoughts, jurists' writings, and politicians' utopias. Figures