U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Crime and Punishment in American History

NCJ Number
148414
Author(s)
L M Friedman
Date Published
1993
Length
588 pages
Annotation
This history of America's criminal justice system from colonial times to the present shows how America fashioned a system of crime and punishment in its own image.
Abstract
Informed by the perspective of the social sciences, this book is a social history of crime and punishment, the story of America's social reaction to crime. The history of crime and punishment in America is not a history of criminal law or an intellectual history of penology or a treatise on the philosophy of good and evil. This book chronicles the development of a working system of criminal justice, from arrest to trial to prison and punishment. The author argues that the evolution of criminal justice has reflected transformations in America's character. Thus, the theocratic world of 17th-Century Puritanism generated a peculiar equation between crime and sin. The geographic and social mobility of 19th-Century America produced its own distinctive approach to crime and punishment; and the expressive individualism of the 20th Century encouraged an emphasis on "crimes of the self." Among the issues of crime and punishment in American history discussed are the Salem witchcraft trials, the "Red Scare" after World War I, the rise of the American penitentiary, the emergence of the professional detective, the development of laws against fornication and gambling, the reform of rape laws, the rise of the insanity defense, and the growth of a prisoners' rights movement. Also included are discussions about the growth of white-collar crime and the revolutionary changes in the relationship between gender and criminal justice. Chapter notes, a bibliographic essay, and a subject index

Sale Source
Basic Books
Address

10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022, United States

Publication Type
Historical Overview
Language
English
Country
United States of America

Downloads

No download available