By Brian Bailey

FROM THE COVER: From the appointment of the infamous Jack Ketch in 1663 to the abolition of the death penalty in 1969, England saw three-hundred years of hanging for a multitude of crimes from stealing a loaf of bread to murder. Public hangings drew vast crowds and the hangman himself became an almost mythical figure of fascinated revulsion. Certainly the men who undertook this gruesome duty were an unusual breed. At first they were often recruited from the same prisons as their victims, and perhaps unsurprisingly they ended up, like John Price, 'dancing the Tyburn jig' at the end of the same rope.

Barnes and Noble. NY. 1989. 230p.

By Allan Brodie, Jane Croom, James O. Davies.

For most of us, the prison is an unfamiliar institution and life 'inside' is beyond our experience. However, more than 60,000 people now live in England's jails, some serving their sentences in buildings with Victorian or more ancient origins, others in prisons dating from the last twenty years. English Prisons: An Architectural History is the result of the first systematic written and photographic survey of prisons since the 20th century. It traces the history of the purpose-built prison and its development over the past 200 years. Over 130 establishments that make up the current prison estate and over 100 former sites that have surviving buildings or extensive documentation have been investigated, institutions ranging from medieval castles and military camps to country houses that have been taken over and adapted for penal use.

The Prison Service granted the project team unprecedented access to all its establishments, allowing the compilation of an archive of more than 5,000 images and 250 research files. The team was allowed to go anywhere, and to photograph almost anything (except where this could compromise security) and to speak to any inmate. A selection of the images from the archive illustrates this book.

Swindon, UK: English Heritage 2001, 297p,

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 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.

By C. W. Chancellor.

Excerpt from Report on the Public Charities, Reformatories, Prisons and Almshouses of the State of Maryland, by C. W. Chancellor, M.D., Secretary of the State Board of Health, Made to His Excellency, John Lee Carroll, Governor, July, 1877, by C.W. Williams, and the Maryland State Board of Health.

Frederick, MD: Baughman Brothers, 1877. 208p.

By Mary Carpenter.

“The English and the Irish Convict Systems -were both founded on the Act of Parliament of 1853. The object of that Act ^vaa to make such changes in the system adopted towards Convicts, as would prepare them for discharge in oiu' own country, since our Colonial provinces were virtually closed against them, "Western Australia only consenting still to receive a small number annually. "We have seen that in England the system has hitherto been a failure, but have traced that failure, not to the principles on which that and the subsequent one of 1857 were founded, but to certain omissions and additions which were incompatible with the successful working of the principles. We now proceed to the examination of the Irish Convict System, which has fully developed the principles of both those Acts. The results of the ten years during which it has been in operation demonstrate, beyond any possibility of doubt to an impartial observer, not only the truth of tlio principles embodied in the Acts of Parliament, but also of those moral principles which are so embodied in it as to constitute its peculiar features, and of the excellence of the machinery by which these are brought into action. The wonderful combinations of all these by the founder of the system,Sir Walter Crofton, demands from us very close investigation of its principles, and examination of its details.

London: Longman, 1864. vol. 2. 389p.

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 the Rev. Clifford Rickards.

“In writing the following reminiscences of my twenty-five years' experiences in the Prison on Dartmoor I have had two objects in view first, to interest my readers and excite their sympathy for a class of men who, although they are criminals, are not without their good points, as some of them have recently shown by their conduct in the late war.”

London: Edward Arnold. (1920) 246 pages.

By Kent F. Schull.

Microcosms Of Modernity. “While researching in the Imperial Ottoman Archives in Istanbul I found a treasure trove of untapped documents related to penal institutions and prison reform in the late Ottoman Empire. I quickly realised how integral criminal justice reforms, including prisons, were to Ottoman plans to restructure the empire comprehensively. I also recognised that prisons were intrinsic to many facets of Ottoman modernity and nation-state construction during the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries….Similar to Foucault’s assessment of French prisons, I argue that various late Ottoman administrations utilised prisons as important instruments of social control and discipline.”

Edinburgh University Press (2014) 241p.

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.

Read/Download