The Crisis of Imprisonment: Protest, Politics, and the Making of the American Penal State, 1776-1941

521 Pages·2008·2.01 MB·English

by  Rebecca M. McLennan

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the crisis of imprisonment
IntheAgeofJackson,privateenterprisesetupshopintheAmericanpenal
1900
system.Workinghandinglovewithstategovernment,by contractors
in both the North and the South would go on to put more than half a
million imprisoned men, women, and youth to hard, sweated toil for pri-
vate gain. Held captive, stripped of their rights, and subjected to lash and
paddle, these convict laborers churned out vast quantities of goods and
30
revenue,insomeyearsgeneratingtheequivalentofmorethan$ billion
1880
worthofwork.Bythe s,however,agrowingcross-sectionofAmerican
society came to regard the prison labor system as morally corrupt and un-
befittingofafreerepublic:itfosteredtortureandotherabuses,degraded
free citizen-workers, corrupted the government and the legal system, and
defeatedthesupposedlymoralpurposeofpunishment.TheCrisisofImpris-
onment tells the remarkable story of this controversial system of penal
servitude – how it came into being, how it worked, how the popular cam-
paigns for its abolition were ultimately victorious, and how it shaped and
continues to haunt America’s modern penal system. The author takes the
readerintothevital,robustworldofnineteenth-centuryartisans,industrial
workers, farmers, clergy, convicts, machine politicians, and labor leaders
andshowshowprisonsbecamealightningrodinadetermineddefenseof
republican values against the encroachments of an unbridled market cap-
italism. She explores the vexing moral questions that prisons posed then
andthatarestillexigenttoday:Whatarethelimitsofstatepoweroverthe
minds, bodies, and souls of citizens – is torture permissible under certain
circumstances? What, if anything, makes the state morally fit to deprive a
personoflifeorliberty?Areprisonersslavesand,ifso,bywhatright?Should
prisonerswork?Istheprisonamorallydefensibleinstitution?Theeventual
abolition of prison labor contracting plunged the prisons into deep fiscal
and ideological crisis. The second half of the book offers a sweeping rein-
terpretationofProgressiveEraprisonreformasaboveallaresponsetothis
crisis. It concludes with an exploration of the long-range impact on the
modernAmericanpenalsystemofbothpenalservitudeandthemovement
foritsabolition.
RebeccaM.McLennanisAssociateProfessorofHistoryatTheUniversityof
1999
California,Berkeley.In ,shereceivedColumbiaUniversity’sBancroft
AwardforherdoctoraldissertationontheriseoftheAmericanpenalstate.
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cambridge historical studies in american law and society
SeriesEditor
ChristopherTomlins,AmericanBarFoundation
Previouslypublishedintheseries:
TonyA.Freyer,AntitrustandGlobalCapitalism,1930–2004
DavisonDouglas,JimCrowMovesNorth
AndrewWenderCohen,TheRacketeer’sProgress
MichaelWillrich,CityofCourts,SocializingJusticeinProgressiveEraChicago
BarbaraYoungWelke,RecastingAmericanLiberty:Gender,Lawandthe
RailroadRevolution,1865–1920
MichaelVorenberg,FinalFreedom:TheCivilWar,theAbolitionofSlavery,
andtheThirteenthAmendment
RobertJ.Steinfeld,Coercion,Contract,andFreeLaborinNineteenthCentury
America
DavidM.Rabban,FreeSpeechinItsForgottenYears
JennyWahl,TheBondsman’sBurden:AnEconomicAnalysisoftheCommon
LawofSouthernSlavery
MichaelGrossberg,AJudgmentforSolomon:Thed’HautevilleCaseandLegal
ExperienceintheAntebellumSouth
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1916
Anon.,“TheOldSystem–andtheNew,”ca. .Bypermission,OsborneFamily
Papers,SyracuseUniversityLibrary,SpecialCollectionsResearchCenter.
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The Crisis of Imprisonment
protest, politics, and the making of the
american penal state, 1776–1941
Rebecca M. McLennan
TheUniversityofCalifornia,Berkeley
v
CAMBRIDGEUNIVERSITYPRESS
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Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
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© Rebecca M. McLennan 2008
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of
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without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published in print format 2008
ISBN-13 978-0-511-39471-3 eBook (NetLibrary)
ISBN-13 978-0-521-83096-6 hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-53783-4 paperback
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ForA´sta,Felicity,andRoy
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