Penitentiaries, Reformatories, and Chain Gangs
Social Theory and the History of Punishment in Nineteenth-Century America
Published on 14. August 1997
X, 294 pages
978-0-312-29926-2 (ISBN)
Description
The very definition of punishment in America has been subject to a variety of changes, and has served as the basis for much debate over the course of America's history. In Penitentiaries, Reformatories, Chain Gangs , Mark Colvin tackles the subject of penal change in America by examining three case studies which represent shifts in the interpretation of punishment specifically during the nineteenth century: the rise of penitentiaries in the Northeast; the changes in the treatment of women offenders in the North; and the transformation of punishment in the South after the Civil War. Colvin uses these case studies to apply four theoretical explanations of penal change, shedding light on both the history of penal authority and the current state of the system today. An engrossing and highly relevant volume, Penitentiaries, Reformatories, Chain Gangs is a comprehensive investigation of punishment and its meaning past and present.
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M. Colvin
Penitentiaries, Reformatories, and Chain Gangs
Social Theory and the History of Punishment in Nineteenth-Century America
Book
10/1997
Palgrave MacMillan
€85.59
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Person
Mark Colvin is Associate Professor of Sociology at George Mason University.
Content
Introduction - Rival Theories of the Transformation of Punishment Systems and Penal Practices - The Rise and Consolidation of the Penitentiary in the Northeast - From Colonies to Early Republic: The Rise of the Penitentiary - Market Revolution and the Consolidation of the Two: Transformation of the Gender Roles and the Punishment of Women Offenders in the North - Before the Civil War: 'True Womanhood' and the 'Depraved' Female Offender - Purity Crusade, Progressivism, and the Development of Woman's Reformatories: Civil War to 1920 - Applying Theories to the Transformation of the Punishment of Women Offenders - Case Study Three: The Transformation of Criminal Punishment in the South - From Slavery to Reconstruction: Penitentiaries and Chain Gangs - Redemption and the New South: Convict Leasing and Lynching - Applying Theories to the Transformation of Punishment in the South - Conclusion: Nineteenth-Century Legacies: Understanding Today's Corrections System - Index
