«Aspiration for reform»: prison transformations in the United Kingdom in the 70s of the 18th century
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34015/2523-4552.2019.3.06Keywords:
Great Britain, social reforms, prison, transportation, penitentiary, solitary confinement, hard labourAbstract
The article analyzes the socio-political conditions that led to the revision of the English system of punishment, the causes and stages of prison transformations in the United Kingdom in the 70s of the 18th century. The author identifies the main provisions of the legislation that enshrined these changes, outlines the ideas and views of philosophers, philanthropists and lawyers (Samuel Denne, Jonas Hanway, William Eden, William Blackstone, John Howard) on the modernization of prisons and their importance in developing the concept of correctional punishment. Particular attention is paid to the development process and the main provisions of the Gaol Act 1774, Hulks Act 1776, Hard Labor Bill 1778, Penitentiary Act 1779.
Developments of prison reform theorists were enshrined in the Hulks Act 1776 and the Penitentiary Act 1779. As an alternative to transportation, abolished in 1775, it was proposed to impose hard labor imprisonment punishable, the purpose of which was not only punishment and intimidation, but also the correction of criminals through awareness of their guilt, repentance and systematic work. The basis of the prison regime had to be division of prisoners into classes, solitary confinement, strict discipline and spiritual care. Despite the lack of practical implementation, the Penitentiary Act was essential to further improvement of the operation of existing detention facilities and to building of new prisons throughout the country.
During the 70's of the 18th century prison transformations in the UK were only part of social reform, not an independent direction, as there were no radical changes in public policy and the penal system.
References
References
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39. The Statutes at Large: From the Magna Charta, to the End of the Eleventh Parliament of Great Britain, Anno 1761 [continued to 1806]. By Danby Pickering. By Great Britain; Pickering, Danby. Т. 34. Cambridge. Р. 732–740.
40. Semple, J. Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon Prison. Ph.D. thesis. London University. 1990. 375 р.
41. Davie, N. When was the prison? Thinking and rethinking the penitentiary in Britain, 1770–1850 (unpublished seminar paper, 2013) URL: https://www.academia.edu/3383786/_When_was_the_prison_Thinking_and_re-thinking_the_penitentiary_in_Britain_1770-1850_unpublished_seminar_paper_2013_(accessed: 25.10.2019)
1. Webb, S., Webb, B. English prisons under local government. London: Longmans, Green. 1922. 261 p.
2. McConville, S. A History of English Prison Administration: 1750–1877. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981. 534 p.
3. Throness, L. A Protestant Purgatory: Theological Origins of the Penitentiary Act, 1779. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2008. 379 p.
4. Hardman, P. The Origins of Late Eighteenth-Century Prison Reform in England. PhD thesis. Department of History. University of Sheffield. 2007. 236 р.
5. Balch-Lindsay, V. S. An orderly metropolis: the evolution of criminal justice in London, 1750–1830. A dissertation in history Texas Tech University, 1998. 444 p.
6. Draper, A. J. William Eden and leniency in punishment. History of Political Thought. Vol. 22, No. 1 (Spring 2001), P. 106–130.
7. Devereaux, S. The Making of the Penitentiary Act, 1775–1779. The Historical Journal. Vol. 42, No. 2 (Jun., 1999), P. 405–433.
8. Ignatieff, M. The Ideological Origins of the Penitentiary. Crime and Society: Readings in History and Theory / Fitzgerald M., McLennan G., Pawson J. Routledge, 1981. P. 31–49.
9. Melossi, D., Pavarini, M. The Prison and the Factory. Origins of the Penitentiary System (Critical criminology series) / Translated by G. Cousin. London: The Macmillan Press LTD, 1981. 244 p.
10. Draper, A. J. Cesare Beccaria’s influence on English discussions of punishment, 1764–1789, «History of European Ideas», 26, 2000, P. 177–199 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-6599(01)00017-1.
11. Eden, W. Principles of Penal Law. London, 1771. 300 p.
12. Parliamentary Initiatives Motivated Howard’s Prison Investigations. URL: http://www.acrosswalls.org/howard-prison-investigations/ (accessed: 21.11.2018).
13. Blake, O. W. Sir William Blackstone. Yale Law Journal. 1919. Vol. 28. Issue 6. P. 542–566.
14. Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about Gaol Fever URL: http://www.acrosswalls.org/section/communicative-walls/knowledge/john-howard/ (accessed: 10.09.2019).
15. Discharged Prisoners Act of 1774. URL: http://www.acrosswalls.org/notes/discharged-prisoners-act-of-1774/ (accessed: 10.09.2019).
16. Creese, R., Bynum, W. F., Bearn J. The Health of Prisoners: Historical Essays. Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA Rodopi, 1995. 184 p.
17. Montgomery, J. Verses to the Memory of the Late Richard Reynolds, of Bristol. London, 1817. P. 12 31 p.
18. Porter, R. ‘Howard’s beginning: prisons, disease, hygiene. Richard Creese, William F Bynum, J Bearn (eds). The health of prisoners: historical essays. Rodopi, Amsterdam & Atlanta 1995. P. 5–26.
19. Page, А. John Jebb and the Enlightenment Origins of British Radicalism. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2003. 309 р.
20. Harris, R. Politics and the Nation: Britain in the Mid-Eighteenth Century. OUP Oxford. 2002. 404 p.
21. A plan for the establishment of charity-houses for exposed or deserted women and girls, and for penitent prostitutes: Observations concerning the Foundling-Hospital, shewing the ill consequences of giving public support thereto. Considerations relating to the poor and the poor's-laws of England; ... By J. Massie. London: printed for T. Payne; sold by W. Shropshire; W. Owen; and C. Henderson, 1758. 146 р.
22. Reverend Samuel Denne's A letter to Sir Robert Ladbroke, Knt, Senior Alderman, And One of the Representatives of the City of London. London, 1771. 83 p.
23. See: Sokalska, O. (2018). Origins of English prison reform (XVI–XVIII centuries). Bulletin of the Penitentiary Association of Ukraine, 4(6), 16–29 https://doi.org/https:10.34015/2523-4552.2018.4.02 [In Ukranian].
Сокальська, О. (2018). Витоки англійської тюремної реформи (XVI–XVIII століття). Вісник Пенітенціарної асоціації України, (4), 16-29. https://doi.org/https:10.34015/2523-4552.2018.4.02.
24. An Enquiry into the Causes of the Frequent Executions at Tyburn, ete, by B. Mandeville, 1725, 55 p.
25. Hanway, J. The Defects of Police, the Cause of Immorality, and the Continual Robberies committed, particularly in and about the Metropolis. London, 1775. 288 p.
26. Hanway, J. Solitude in Imprisonment: With Proper Profitable Labour and a Spare Diet, the Most Humane and Effectual Means of Bringing Malefactors, who Have Forfeited Their Lives, Or are Subject to Transportation, to a Right Sense of Their Condition; with Proposals for Salutary Prevention. London: Printed for J. Bew. 1776. 144 p.
27. Early American crime. The End of Convict Transportation: Convict Hulks. URL: http://www.earlyamericancrime.com/convict-transportation/end-of-transportation/convict-hulks (accessed: 15.09.2019).
28. Durston, G. J. Fields, Fens and Felonies: Crime and Justice in Eighteenth-Century East Anglia. Waterside P. 2017. 732 р.
29. Hitchcock, T., Shoemaker, R. London Lives: Poverty, Crime and the Making of a Modern City, 1690–1800. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. 461 p.
30. An act to authorise for a limited time the punishment by hard labour of offenders who for certain crimes are or hall become liable to be transported to any of his Majesty's colonies and plantations. The statutes at large from the Magna Charta, to the end of the Eleventh Parliament of Great Britain, anno 1761 [continued to 1806]. By Danby Pickering. By Great Britain; Pickering, Danby. Т. 31. Cambridge. Р. 262–269.
31. Lock, F. P. Edmund Burke, Volume II: 1784–1797. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. 605 p.
32. The country justice: containing the practice, duty and power of the justices of the peace, as well in as out of their sessions by Dalton, Michael, d. 1648?; Adams, John, 1735–1826, former owner. BRL; John Adams Library (Boston Public Library). 508 р.
33. State of the gaols in London, Westminster, and borough of Southwark : to which is added, An account of the present state of the convicts sentenced to hard labour on board the Justitia upon the river Thames, by William Smith, London: printed and sold by J. Bew. 1776. 90 p.
34. Mild punishments sound policy or observations on the laws relative to debtors and felons, ... The second edition, with an appendix, wherein hard labour, substituted in place of transportation, is elucidated ... By William Smith, London: printed and sold by J. Bew, 1778. 121 p.
35. Goldie, M., Wokler, R. The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought, Т. 1. Cambridge University Press, 2006. 919 p.
36. Howard, J. The state of the prisons in England and Wales: with preliminary observations, and an account of some foreign prisons. Warrington: Printed by William Eyres, 1777. 528 p.
37. Bentham, J. A View of the Hard Labour Bill (1778). The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838–1843). 11 vols. Vol. 4. P. 3–35.
38. The Statutes at Large from the Magna Charta, to the End of the Eleventh Parliament of Great Britain, Anno 1761 [continued to 1806]. By Danby Pickering, T. 32. 1778. P. 417–445.
39. The Statutes at Large: From the Magna Charta, to the End of the Eleventh Parliament of Great Britain, Anno 1761 [continued to 1806]. By Danby Pickering. By Great Britain; Pickering, Danby. Т. 34. Cambridge. Р. 732–740.
40. Semple, J. Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon Prison. Ph.D. thesis. London University. 1990. 375 р.
41. Davie, N. When was the prison? Thinking and rethinking the penitentiary in Britain, 1770–1850 (unpublished seminar paper, 2013) URL: https://www.academia.edu/3383786/_When_was_the_prison_Thinking_and_re-thinking_the_penitentiary_in_Britain_1770-1850_unpublished_seminar_paper_2013_(accessed: 25.10.2019)
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2019-12-28
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Сокальська, О. 2019. «Aspiration for reform»: prison transformations in the United Kingdom in the 70s of the 18th century. Bulletin of the Penitentiary association of Ukraine. 3 (Dec. 2019), 81–97. DOI:https://doi.org/10.34015/2523-4552.2019.3.06.
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