The essay studies the ways journalists, lawyers, convicts and others reflect on prison and prison life, showing the multiple meanings and symbolisms associated with the institutions. By depicting prison populations as essentially made up of recidivists, true criminals and the like, these witnesses disseminated an image of the prison as a world apart, hidden from public scrutiny. This tended to alleviate the anxieties felt by the free population and helped to stress the importance of having the criminals behind bars. The overall result was the naturalization of the image of the "savage criminal," a notion shared by the criminologists whose task was to decipher the intricacies of the criminal mind. Portraying criminals as unreformable ultimately offered pessimistic judgments about the overall performance of the reformed prisons. Depicting inmates as peaceful and obedient in appearance but violent and brutal in essence reinforced the pessimism of reformers on the possibilities of rehabilitation. Notes