The Deviant Prison

A compelling examination of the highly criticized use of long-term solitary confinement in Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary during the nineteenth century.

Unlike other athletes, the rock climber tends to disregard established norms of style and technique, doing whatever she needs to do to get to the next foothold. This figure provides an apt analogy for the scholar at the center of this unique book. In Rocking Qualitative Social Science, Ashley Rubin provides an entertaining treatise, corrective vision, and rigorously informative guidebook for qualitative research methods that have long been dismissed in deference to traditional scientific methods. Recognizing the steep challenges facing many, especially junior, social science scholars who struggle to adapt their research models to narrowly defined notions of "right," Rubin argues that properly nourished qualitative research can generate important, creative, and even paradigm-shifting insights. This book is designed to help people conduct good qualitative research, talk about their research, and evaluate other scholars' work. Drawing on her own experiences in research and life, Rubin provides tools for qualitative scholars, synthesizes the best advice, and addresses the ubiquitous problem of anxiety in academia. Ultimately, this book argues that rigorous research can be anything but rigid.

"Decarceration" is a word which has not yet entered the dictionary. But it is increasingly being used to designate a process with momentous implications for all of us. It is shorthand for a state-sponsored policy of closing down asylums, prisons, and reformatories. Mad people, criminals, and delinquents are being discharged or refused admission to the dumps in which they have been traditionally housed. Instead, they are to be left at large, to be coped with "in the community." We are told by those who run programs of this sort that keeping the criminal and the mentally disturbed in our midst is "humane." We are informed that it is a "more effective" means of curing or rehabilitating such people. And, miracle of miracles, we learn that this approach is also "cheaper"! With an alternative which embraces such an array of virtues, who can be surprised to learn that mental hospitals are emptying faster and faster, and that with each passing day the convicted felon's chances of going to prison grow more remote? On closer examination, it turns out that this whole enterprise is built on a foundation of sand. The claim that leaving deviants at large "cures" or "rehabilitates" them is just that - a claim. Little or no solid evidence can be offered in its support. Instead, it rests uneasily on a cloud of rhetoric and wishful thinking. Most people's conception of the "humane" does not embrace placing senile men and women in the hands of rapacious nursing home operators or turning loose the perpetrators of violent crimes, under conditions which guarantee that they will receive little or no supervision. Yet, as decarceration has been implemented, this is what has been happening. Much of the time, it appears as if the policy makers simply do not know what will happen when their schemes are put into effect. Nor do they seem very concerned to find out. Often, they do not even know where those they have dumped back on the rest of us are to be found.

In eighteenth-century Britain, gaols were places of temporary confinement, where inmates stayed while awaiting punishment. With the rise of the 'penitentiary' from the early nineteenth century, custodial institutions housed prisoners for much longer periods of time. Prisoners were supposed to be reformed as well as punished during their incarceration. From at least the time of John Howard (1726-1790), the health of prisoners has been part of the concern of philanthropists and others concerned with the wider functions of prisons. The Victorians established a Prison Medical Service, and members of the medical profession have long been involved in caring for the mental and physical needs of prisoners. For two centuries, prison overcrowding has been identified as a major cause of mortality and morbidity in prisons. Historical debates thus often have a modern ring to them, which make the essays in this volume particularly timely.

Jails and prisons are the only settings in which people are held against their will, possibly for long periods of time, and often with no pretense of doing so for their personal benefit. Occupants have little if any control over their lives, as, for instance, the most basic assumptions about privacy to dress, shower, and use the toilet are violated. This book addresses the impact of environmental design on inmates and staff members in jails and prisons and shows how design can dramatically affect the level of stress and violence.

The only comprehensive history of one of America's most infamous prisons, Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, PA. Looming on the horizon like a storm cloud made of stone, the Eastern State Penitentiary spent more than a century as the fortress that both the law-abiding and criminal feared. In this superbly balanced and thoroughly researched volume, Paul Kahan presents the history of this revolutionary penitentiary, from its inception as a model of the revolutionary Pennsylvania System of incarceration in 1829 to the demands for its closure in the wake of ever-increasing violence in 1971. Through tales of spectacular escapes, official corruption, reformation and retribution, Kahan chronicles the tensions that plagued Eastern State since the arrival of its first prisoners.

A brilliant work from the most influential philosopher since Sartre. In this indispensable work, a brilliant thinker suggests that such vaunted reforms as the abolition of torture and the emergence of the modern penitentiary have merely shifted the focus of punishment from the prisoner's body to his soul.

First published in 1976, this book examines rehabilitation within the penal system in Britain in the 1970s. It argues that the ‘rehabilitative ideal’ is not the only possible alternative to a penal policy but an option which has now become institutionalized and alien to traditional concepts of justice. Using a framework derived from the sociology of law, Philip Bean looks at aspects of rehabilitation as it is operated in the courts and in certain penal institutions. He shows how the concept of rehabilitation has had an important but harmful effect on penal policy as it is often incompatible with penal aims. This book considers the impact that sentencing, social enquiry reports and modern prison policies have on rehabilitation. The concluding chapter asks for a return to concepts of justice and a move away from discussions about personal lives of deviant members of society.