The Future of Imprisonment

Abstract

The modern prison, which emerged at the beginning of the nineteenth century, has been closely linked by social historians to modernism. As a form of punishment it embodied the central tenets of Enlightenment thought with its emphasis on the application of rational and scientific principles to social problems such as crime and disorder. In this way, the prison was conceived of as a social laboratory in which individuals could be transformed and social progress could be achieved. Embracing the guiding notions of proportionality and penal economy, Enlightenment thinkers sought to provide a mode of punishment which would remove errant individuals from the corrupting influences of their environment. By placing them in segregative institutions and subjecting them to the rigours of labour discipline, it was believed that it would be possible to instil the habits of industry, thereby turning unproductive and recalcitrant individuals into useful law-abiding subjects.