The state of the prisons in Britain, 1775-1905
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The state of the prisons in Britain, 1775-1905
Routledge/Thoemmese Press
Note
Edited and introduced by W. J. Forsythe
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Reprinted here are eight classic texts illustrating a major British project of the Enlightenment: the reform of prisons. A new introduction places the texts in the context of the philosophy that underpinned the changing new penal policies, and the extreme difficulties to which their implementation gave rise.
The set supplies a unique insight into changing British attitudes to criminals over a period of immense social change. John Howard's famous State of Prisons, published in the 1770s, maps a radical critique of prisons that was in line with the Quaker and Anglican Evangelist ideal of a redemptive and reformatory prison system. By the end of the nineteenth century however this attitude had been superseded by a neo-Darwinian view of the criminal as mentally and morally inferior, and therefore beyond reformation by Christian teaching, represented here by W. Griffiths's Memorials of Millbank and Chapter in Prison History [1875]. A natural conclusion is reached with a reprint of the Gladstone report of 1895, representing the emergence of the turn of the century's New Liberalism; an attempt to design a prison system which would achieve a fusion between individual reformation and character typology for a more optimistic attitude to prisoners.
A fascinating research tool and social document, this set will prove indispensable to sociologists, criminologists and social historians.
Table of Contents
- Volume 1 The State of the Prisons in England and Wales, With Preliminary Observations, and an Account of Some Foreign Prisons John Howard (177) Volume 2 State of the Prisons in England, Scotland, and Wales, Extending to Various Places Therein Assigned, not for the Debtor Only, but for Felons Also, and Other Less Criminal Offenders. Together with some Useful Documents, Observations, and Remarks, Adapted to Explain and Improve the Condition of Prisoners in General James Neild (1812) Volume 3 Notes on a Visit Made to Some of the Prisons in Scotland and the North of England, In Company with Elizabeth Fry
- With Some General Observations on the Subject of Prison Discipline Joseph John Gurney (1819) Volume 4 Third Report of the Inspectors Appointed To Visit the Different Prisons of Great Britain Part I. Home District, and Supplement to Part I (1838) Volume 5 The Prison Chaplain: A Memoir of the Rev. John Clay, B.D., Late Chaplain of the Preston Gaol, With Selections from his Reports and Correspondence, and a Sketch of Prison Discipline in England Walter Lowe Clay (1861) Volume 6 Memorials of Millbank and Chapters in Prison History Arthur Griffiths (1884) Volume 7 Minutes of Evidence Taken by the Departmental Committee on Prisons, With Appendices and Index (1895)
- Report from the Departmental Committee on Prisons (1895) Volume 8 Mrs. Maybrick's Own Story. My Fifteen Lost Years Florence Elizabeth Maybrick (1905)
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