The definition of punishment in America has been subjected to a variety of changes and has served as the basis for much debate over the course of U.S. history. Just how far the reach of penal authority should extend, and exactly what limits to it should be imposed, are questions explored here by sociologist Dr. Mark Colvin, who has extensive experience working in penitentiaries and correction agencies.

The very definition of punishment in America has been subject to a variety of changes, and has served as the basis for much debate over the course of America's history. In Penitentiaries, Reformatories, Chain Gangs , Mark Colvin tackles the subject of penal change in America by examining three case studies which represent shifts in the interpretation of punishment specifically during the nineteenth century: the rise of penitentiaries in the Northeast; the changes in the treatment of women offenders in the North; and the transformation of punishment in the South after the Civil War. Colvin uses these case studies to apply four theoretical explanations of penal change, shedding light on both the history of penal authority and the current state of the system today. An engrossing and highly relevant volume, Penitentiaries, Reformatories, Chain Gangs is a comprehensive investigation of punishment and its meaning past and present.

The very definition of punishment in America has been subject to a variety of changes, and has served as the basis for much debate over the course of America's history. In Penitentiaries, Reformatories, Chain Gangs, Mark Colvin tackles the subject of penal change in America by examining three case studies which represent shifts in the interpretation of punishment specifically during the nineteenth century: the rise of penitentiaries in the Northeast; the changes inthe treatment of women offenders in the North; and the transformation of punishment in the South after the Civil War. Colvin uses these case studies to apply four theoretical explanations of penal change, shedding light on both the history of penal authority and the current state of the system today. An engrossing and highly relevant volume, Penitentiaries, Reformatories, Chain Gangs is a comprehensive investigation of punishment and its meaning past and present.

The very definition of punishment in America has been subject to a variety of changes, and has served as the basis for much debate over the course of America's history. In Penitentiaries, Reformatories, Chain Gangs , Mark Colvin tackles the subject of penal change in America by examining three case studies which represent shifts in the interpretation of punishment specifically during the nineteenth century: the rise of penitentiaries in the Northeast; the changes in the treatment of women offenders in the North; and the transformation of punishment in the South after the Civil War. Colvin uses these case studies to apply four theoretical explanations of penal change, shedding light on both the history of penal authority and the current state of the system today. An engrossing and highly relevant volume, Penitentiaries, Reformatories, Chain Gangs is a comprehensive investigation of punishment and its meaning past and present.

A vivid history of America's biggest, baddest prison system and how it came to lead the nation's punitive revolution In the prison business, all roads lead to Texas. The most locked-down state in the nation has led the way in criminal justice severity, from assembly-line executions to isolation supermaxes, from prison privatization to sentencing juveniles as adults. Texas Tough, a sweeping history of American imprisonment from the days of slavery to the present, shows how a plantation-based penal system once dismissed as barbaric became the national template. Drawing on convict accounts, official records, and interviews with prisoners, guards, and lawmakers, historian Robert Perkinson reveals the Southern roots of our present-day prison colossus. While conventional histories emphasize the North's rehabilitative approach, he shows how the retributive and profit-driven regime of the South ultimately triumphed. Most provocatively, he argues that just as convict leasing and segregation emerged in response to Reconstruction, so today's mass incarceration, with its vast racial disparities, must be seen as a backlash against civil rights. Illuminating for the first time the origins of America's prison juggernaut, Texas Tough points toward a more just and humane future.

What should be done with minors who kill, maim, defile, and destroy the lives of others? The state of Texas deals with some of its most serious and violent youthful offenders through “determinate sentencing,” a unique sentencing structure that blends parts of the juvenile and adult justice systems. Once adjudicated via determinate sentencing, offenders are first incarcerated in the Texas Youth Commission (TYC). As they approach age eighteen, they are either transferred to the Texas prison system to serve the remainder of their original determinate sentence or released from TYC into Texas’s communities. The first long-term study of determinate sentencing in Texas, Lost Causes examines the social and delinquent histories, institutionalization experiences, and release and recidivism outcomes of more than 3,000 serious and violent juvenile offenders who received such sentences between 1987 and 2011. The authors seek to understand the process, outcomes, and consequences of determinate sentencing, which gave serious and violent juvenile offenders one more chance to redeem themselves or to solidify their place as the next generation of adult prisoners in Texas. The book’s findings—that about 70 percent of offenders are released to the community during their most crime-prone years instead of being transferred to the Texas prison system and that about half of those released continue to reoffend for serious crimes—make Lost Causes crucial reading for all students and practitioners of juvenile and criminal justice.

Publisher's description: Criminal punishment in America is harsh and degrading-more so than anywhere else in the liberal west. Executions and long prison terms are commonplace in America. Countries like France and Germany, by contrast, are systematically mild. European offenders are rarely sent to prison, and when they are, they serve far shorter terms than their American counterparts. Why is America so comparatively harsh? In this novel work of comparative legal history, James Whitman argues that the answer lies in America's triumphant embrace of a non-hierarchical social system and distrust of state power which have contributed to a law of punishment that is more willing to degrade offenders.