By Tighe Hopkins
An Unofficial View Of Prison And The Prisoner. “Imprisonment, its effects upon the prisoner (in prison and after prison) and the prejudice it creates agamst him in the pubHc mind these are my chief topics. With imperfections of which I am extremely conscious, the book represents a study of some years' duration, a study rendered difficult for the onlooker by this fact above others, that he does not view the life of prison from within.”
Boston. Little Brown (1913) 345 pages.
Edited by Ksenya Kiebuzinski and Alexander Motyl.
A Sourcebook. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, executed a staggering number of political prisoners in Western Ukraine-somewhere between 10,000 and 40,000-in the space of eight days, in one of the greatest atrocities perpetrated by the Soviet state. Yet the Great West Ukrainian Prison Massacre of 1941 is largely unknown. This sourcebook aims to change that, offering detailed scholarly analysis, eyewitness testimonies and profiles of known victims, and a selection of fiction, memoirs, and poetry that testifies to the lasting impact of the massacre in the collective memory of Ukrainians.
Amsterdam University Press. (217) 433 pages.
By Harriette B. Gunn.
Were John Howard alive to-day, he would rejoice over the development of the prison reforms he inaugurated . He would be surprised at the Prisoner’sAid Societies, the Parole Boards, the Hope Halls, the International Prison Congress meeting annually to discuss prison problems, , and the many changes of the new system of prison management. Praise God for the humanity that now exists..
Christopher publishing (1922) 301 pages.
By Hesba Stretton.
“The small back room, which was the home of a family, was not much larger than a prison-cell, and, in point of cleanliness and light and ventilation, was far inferior to it….”
American News Co. (1880) 268 pages.
By Dorothea Lynde Dix.
“ Society, during the last hundred years, has been alternately perplexed and encouraged, defeated and successful, respecting the two great questions— how shall the criminal and pauper be disposed of, in order to reduce crime and reform the criminal on the one hand, and, on the other, to diminish pauperism and restore the pauper to useful citizenship 1 Though progress has been made, through the efforts of energetic and enlightened persons, directed to the attainment of these ends, all know that society is very far from realizing their accomplishment. We accord earnest and grateful praise to those who have procured the benefits at present possessed ; and, with careful zeal, we would endeavor to advance a work, which succeeding generations must toil to perfect and complete. Moralists and philosophers, with pietists and philanthropists, have urged upon "communities the truer course of employing early preventive measures, rather than expend the energies, at a late period, in futile attempts to govern and lead by correct and virtuous habits, the long-time criminal, and the life-long indolent and ignorant
Boston : Printed by Munroe & Francis, 1845. 108p.
By Eugene O’Dunne, Redmond C. Stewart and George L. Jones
Report of Maryland Penitentiary Penal Commission, appointed July 24, 1912.
Baltimore: The Commission, 1913. 341p.
Introduction by Charles Tibbits.
“ The name of London's famous and terrible prison Newgate has for centuries conjured to the public mind the gloomiest picture that the imagination of the listener could conceive of human retribution on the criminal and depraved. What the name of theBastille was in France to the person who might find himself at variance with political powers the name of Newgate was to the person who bore in himself the consciousness of crime. Its terrible reputation as the place of vengeance on offenders against theLaws seems to have a remarkable antiquity. Which prison was first instituted there is no record. As early as 121 1 however we have the news of its dungeons being filled with offenders. In I334..a commission was appointed by the authorities to consider the tortures then in use to extort confessions from the unfortunate wretches within its grim hold. From one end of the country to the;other Newgate became known as a place where all the terrors of the Law awaited the guilty. Dipping Into its gloomy annals one cannot help also arriving at the conviction that its terrors were not wholly reserved for the guilty. They overtook the unfortunate innocent sometimes. The inscription on the old Edinborough Tolbooth would excellently apply to it-—even as it will apply to many of our prisons to-day.”
London: Sisley's, 1908. 327p.
A Symposium by Julia Kippen Jaffray and George Gordon Battle.
Contents: I. The prisoner and the courts / by William H. Wadhams -- II. The prisoner himself. Part I. / by Bernard H. Glueck. Part II / by Thomas W. Salmon -- III. The prisoner--ward or slave? / by Karl W. Kirchwey -- IV. The control over the prisoner. Part I. Federal / by George Gordon Battle. Part II. State / by E. Stagg Whitin -- V. Self-government by the prisoner. Part I. Self-government in a state prison / by Thomas Mott Osborne. Part II. Self-government in a reformatory / by E. Kent Hubbard -- VI. The prison officer / by Frederick A. Dorner -- VII. Industrial training for the prisoner / by Arthur D. Dean -- VIII. The prisoner in the road camp / by Charles Henry Davis -- IX. The union man and the prisoner / by Collis Lovely -- X. The man who comes out of prison / by R.J. Caldwell -- XI. The community center and the delinquent / by John Collier. Boston:
Little, Brown, 1917. 250p.
By William Thomas Root and Giovanni Giardini.
“The report is divided in five sections besides an introductory discussion of the character of the data and the methods used in the survey. In the section on "Race and Crime" there is an extended study of the Italians and with the Negro.”
Pittsburgh, PA: The Board of trustees of the Western penitentiary, 1927. 246p.
Prison Reform League
“This book deals with crime and the treatment of criminals. It states facts of vital importance to every man and woman, and adds deductions that boldly challenge contradiction. The facts have been gathered from the best governmental and official reports available, and from noted writers who have made this field their special study. The deductions stand on their own logical merits, but are supported by numerous quotations. The work has grown naturally out of the researches set on foot by the Prison Reform League, and, while submitted to the public at large, is designed more particularly for the use of those whose profession is the pen, the pulpit or the platform, in the hope that it may promote a more intelligent discussion of a subject that is calling imperiously for thorough ventilation.”
Los Angeles: Prison Reform League Publishing, 1910. 320p.
By Richard Vaux.
Origin and History for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. “Those who are earnestly enquiring after the best system of punishment for criminals will find that the vital question to be determined, is to ascertain that system which best secures punishment, reforms the individual, protects society, and prevents the existence of a criminal class, educated and organized during imprisonment. This is the serious, the primary question which is paramount to “cost," " support” and profit “making," those minor subjects, which too frequently receive undue attention in discussing systems of punishment.”
Phila. McLaughlin (1872) 162p.
By Charles M. Skinner.
“How slenderly we balance between right and wrong! The moment ary temptation, the sudden stroke of passion, the flash of an evil thought, the suggestion of a selfish motive, may turn us from the right forever.”
Harrow and Heston Classic Reprint. (1902) 60 pages.
By Karl Nitsche, and Paul & Wilmanns.
This work brings the reader to the present-day view-points with reference to the prison psychoses through the medium of a historical review of their development in the German literature. Such a work should be welcomed by all who are interested in the problems of psychopathology and particularly those who long for more rationalistic methods of dealing with the criminal and with all of the problems of criminology. Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph Series No. 13 .
Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease (1912) 104 pages.
By Rev. R. H. Sanders.
Lights and Shades of Prison Life. Methods of reform considered from a Christian standpoint. Along with some opinions of distinguished men and women, who have made a study of criminal life.
S. B. Shaw. Chicago (1903) 322 pages.
By A. Merchant.
Edited by Frank Henderson. “To a kind and devoted brother, who cheered me with words of Christian sympathy and brotherly love during the darkest and most desolate hours of my past unhappy career, the following pages are affectionately inscribed by the author.”
Richard Bentley et al. publishers to her Majesty (1869) 259 pages.
By A .Prison Matron.
”I wish it to be clearly understood that these are the honest reminiscences of one retired from Government many years of prison service experience —that enable me to offer my readers a fair statement of life and adventure at Brixton and Millbank prisons, and afford me the opportunity of attempting to convey some faint impression of the strange hearts that beat perhaps break, a few of them…”
London. Hurst and Blackett (1862) 320p.
By Sara M. Benson.
Race, Leavenworth, and the Culture of Law. Built in the 1890s at the center of the nation, Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary was designed specifically to be a replica of the US Capitol Building. But why? The Prison of Democracy explains the political significance of a prison built to mimic one of America’s monuments to democracy. Benson argues that Leavenworth reshaped the design of punishment in America by gradually normalizing state-inflicted violence against citizens.
UC Press (2019) 209 pages.
Report of the Principal Keeper.
Contains many statistics on inmates and other day-to-day activities in the penitentiary. In his introduction, the Keeper pronounces the penitentiary in perfect condition.
Harrow and Heston Classic Reprint. (1892) 112 pages.
By Peter Caster.
A prison official in 1888 declared that it was the freeing of slaves that actually created prisons: “we had to establish means for their control. Hence came the penitentiary.” Such rampant racism contributed to the criminalization of black masculinity in the cultural imagination, shaping not only the identity of prisoners (collectively and individually) but also America’s national character. Caster analyzes the representations of imprisonment in books, films, and performances, alternating between history and fiction to describe how racism influenced imprisonment during the decline of lynching in the 1930s, the political radicalism in the late 1960s, and the unprecedented prison expansion through the 1980s and 1990s. Offering new interpretations of familiar works by William Faulkner, Eldridge Cleaver, and Norman Mailer, Caster also engages recent films such as American History X, The Hurricane, and The Farm: Life Inside Angola Prison alongside prison history chronicled in the transcripts of the American Correctional Association. This book offers a compelling account of how imprisonment has functioned as racial containment, a matter critical to U.S. history and literary study.
Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2008. 279p.
