American penology
Subtitle: a history of control
By: Thomas G. Blomberg, Karol Lucken
Contributors: Lucken, Karol
Edition: Enl. 2nd ed.
Publisher: AldineTransaction
Published: 2010
Place of publication: New Brunswick [N.J.]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 299
ISBN-13: 9780202363349
Description: Overview: The purpose of American Penology is to provide a story of punishment's past, present, and likely future. The story begins in the 1600s, in the setting of colonial America, and ends in the present. As the story evolves through various historical and contemporary settings, America's efforts to understand and control crime unfold. The context, ideas, practices, and consequences of various reforms in the ways crime is punished are described and examined. Though the book's broader scope and purpose can be distinguished from prior efforts, it necessarily incorporates many contributions from this rich literature. While this enlarged second edition incorporates select descriptions and contingencies in relation to particular eras and punishment ideas and practices, it does not limit itself to individual "histories" of these eras. Instead, it uses history to frame and help explain particular punishment ideas and practices in relation to the period and context from which they evolved. The authors focus upon selected demographic, economic, political, religious, and intellectual contingencies that are associated with historical and contemporary eras to show how these contingencies shaped America's punishment ideals and practices. In offering a new understanding of received notions of crime control in this edition, Blomberg and Lucken not only provide insights into the future of punishment, but also show how the larger culture of control extends beyond the field of criminology to have an impact on declining levels of democracy, freedom, and privacy.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: Public punishment in Colonial America (1600-1790); title: Penal code reform in the period of transition (1790-1830); title: Age of the penitentiary in nineteenth-century America (1830-1870s); title: Progressivism and reformatory, parole, and probation (1880s-1920s); title: Progressivism and the juvenile court (1900-1960s); title: Twentieth-century rehabilitative ideal and "correctional" system (1900-1960s); title: Prison subcultures (1950s-1960s); title: Prisoner rights in age of discontent (1960s-1970s); title: Decentralizing corrections (1960s-1970s); title: Conservatism and law-and-order punishment (1980s-1990s); title: Penal system as surrogate institution for special populations; title: Punishment in millennial age; title: Conclusion.