American Prisons Today

prisons among the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, and other ancient nations. But they were largely places of temporary confinement for military captives, for persons awaiting execution, and for those who, by some imprudent speech or action, had provoked the political or personal anger of the sovereign. In the middle ages, under the feudal system, when the power of the lord of the manor was almost absolute, the prison was merely a donjon or keep in a baronial castle, where a feudal lord could incarcerate captives taken in flight, or administer discipline to refractory subjects. The prison system of Europe and America has been evolved and developed from these human kennels, the brutal instruments of tyranny, of which the Tower of London and the Bastille are the most elaborate and conspicuous examples. The Tower has been converted into a military museum; and where an indignant populace rose in its might and destroyed the Bastille, the French Nation has erected a column with the figure of Mercury crowning it, whose attitude suggests to the observer the thought that he is dancing over the ruin in the exuberance of his joy at the triumph of Freedom; and the key of the Bastille is perhaps the most interesting relic preserved and shown to visitors at Mount Vernon. But so late as the time of John Howard, only 143 years ago, the government, when it imprisoned a man, washed its hands of pretty nearly all responsibility for him. So little regard was paid to the sanitation of prisons that the most malignant form of typhus fever was popularly known as prison fever. The keepers of prisons could afford to pay immense sums for their appointment, because of the unlimited opportunities for the plunder and blackmailing of prisoners which the control of these engines of oppression gave them. The government did not recognize its obligation even to feed prisoners, who died of starvation while in the custody of their keepers; and societies were organized for the relief of poor debtors. Happily, those days are forever passed away, and for the improved condition of prisons the world has to thank and bless the memory of John Howard-a name which shines illus

Ancient history · Battle · Criminology · Feudalism · Greeks · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Prison · Sociology · Classics · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · History · Law · Law, Rights, and Freedoms · Legal Systems and Judicial Processes

• Norbert Elias and the civilized prison

  Open Access•Jeff Pratt, John Pratt•British Journal of Sociology•1999

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