By Walter Besant.
“On a certain afternoon in about four or five of the clock, I was standing at the open window of my room in that Palace to which Fortune leads her choicest favourites the College, or Prison, as some call it, of the King's Bench. I was at the time a prisoner for debt, with very little chance of ever getting out….”
New York: Dodd, Mead, 1899,. 444p.
By John McElroy.
A Story of Rebel Military Prisons By John McElroy, late of Co.L. 16th III Can. 15 months a guest of the so-called Southern Confederacy. A Private soldiers experience in Richmond, Andersonville, Savannah, Millen Blackshear and Florence.
Harrow and Heston Classic Reprint. (1879) 675 pages.
By Henry M. Boies.
A study of the abnormal increase of criminals and the public burden of pauperism in the U.S. - the causes and remedies. THERE are four hundred and forty-six charitable, reformatory, and penal institutions in the State of Pennsylvania, inspected at least once each year by its Board of Public Charities. They have a wide variety of objects, methods, management, and inmates. The view which a member of this Board obtains, therefore, and the impressions he receives of pauperism and criminality are of a very general nature, inducing a consideration of the subject as a whole. Most of the literature of these subjects, on the contrary, is confined to particular and distinct phases of them. I have endeavored in this book to present this general view of the case as it appears in our country ; to emphasize the waste of human sympathy and public funds which results from what appears to be inconsiderate and misdirected methods of treatment ; to suggest not only possible improvements in these methods, but radical changes in direction ; and, finally, I have proposed a positive remedy, which, however people may disagree concerning its practicability.
New York: Putnam, 1893. 318p.
Edited by M.J.M.Brand-Koolen.
This reader on the prison system was edited by Maria Brand-Koolen. Two chapters have been written especially for this volume - the introductory chapter, written by the editor, and the chapter on temporary release, written by a researcher with the RDC and a member of the Prison Department. Three contributions by Tony Vinson of Australia, who explored the Dutch correctional system in some detail during his visit to the Centre in 1985, are slightly revised versions of chapters from a recent RDC publication. The remaining contributions are the work of (former) RDC researchers and have been published earlier in the Dutch language. Some of these previously published papers have been slightly revised to provide more recent data.The general studies in the first part of the two-part volume provide an overview of the main characteristics of Dutch correctional policy and research. The first chapter aims to give the non-Dutch reader a general idea of the criminal justice system in The Netherlands (in particular the correctional system) and to facilitate understanding of the other contributions. In the second part of the book the authors deal with a variety of special topics, among others the mentally abnormal offender, drug users, ethnic minorities and prison leave.
Deventer: Kugler Publications, 1987. 194p.
Edited by Michael Fiddler.
“Contemporary representations of imprisonment, be they cinematic or literary, tend to be remarkably consistent. There are a series of recurrent characters and tropes that one can reliably expect to see. To give a decidedly partial list, there is the naïf, the kindly old-timer, the threat of (often sexual) violence or the dank darkness of ‘the hole’. A useful exercise in this regard is to look at the ways in which a remake of a particular prison film reuses these visual themes. The 1974 film The Longest Yard (dir. R. Aldrich) starring Burt Reynolds as a disgraced and subsequently imprisoned American football player was remade in 2001 (dir. B.Skolnick) and 2005 (dir. P.Segal) as vehicles for Vinnie Jones and Adam Sandler respectively. The UK version, renamed Mean Machine to match the original UK release title of the 1974 film, owes much to key British television and film where prisons and imprisonment play key roles.”
Prison Service Journal. Issue 199. January 2012. 64p.
By Dario Melossi.
An examination and interpretation of the development of modern prisons in England and Europe from 1550 to 1850, a study of Italian prison development, and of American prisons from colonial times to 1930.
New York: Macmillan, 1981. 243p.
By Michael Ignatieff.
"A Just Measure of Pain" describes the moment in 18th century England when the modern penitentiary and its ambiguous legacy were born. In depicting how the whip, the brand and the gallows - public punishments once meant to cow the unruly poor into passivity - came to be replaced by the "moral management" of the prison and the notion that the criminal poor should be involved in their own rehabilitation. Michael Ignatieff documents the rise of a new conception of class relations and with it a new philosophy of punishment, one directed not at the body but at the mind. "A Just Measure of Pain" is a highly atmospheric and compellingly written work of social history, which has already become a classic study of its subject.
New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. 257p.
By D. Morris Kurtz
Its Facilities and Resources. For reasons of their own, the publishers have been pleased to omit the sketches relating to the large axle manufactories of Sheldon & Co., in the Auburn Prison and on Sheldon Avenue ; the shoe manufactories of Dunn, Barber & Co., in the Auburn Prison and on Garden street ; the hollow ware manufactory of Jones & Merritt, Auburn Prison ; the hame manufactory of Hayden & Boyd, Auburn Prison, and several smaller concerns (manufacturing and mercantile), for which I can only express sorrow.
Kurtz publishing (1884) 159p.
By Charles H. Reeve.
A theoretical and philosophical review of some matters relating to crime, punishment, prisons, and reformation of convicts. With a glance at mental, social and political conditions; and some suggestions about and the prevention of crime and the production of causes, and the prevention of crime and the production of criminals.
Knight and Leonard (1890) 206 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 Rev. Jacob Goldstein,
Through a Judicial Blunder. The case of Alfred Schwitofsky. The story of an injustice and a plea for justice. By Rev. Jacob Goldstein. “He who hath the Truth on his side is the Majority — even though he stand alone.”
Read-Me.Org Classic Reprint (1913) 181p.
By Georg Rusche and Otto Kirchheimer.
The classic Marxist oriented explanation of why certain classes of people end up in prisons.
Harrow and Heston Classic Reprint. (1939) 273 pages.
