The book contains articles by 18 contributors, from six countries, with backgrounds in history, sociology, criminology and public health. The articles discuss, among other topics: (1) historical theories of confinement; (2) four centuries of prison history; (3) histories of American and European hospitals and methodological perspectives in those histories; (4) madhouses, children's wards and clinics; (5) pietist universal reform and care of the sick and poor, the medical institutions of the Francke Foundations and their social context; (6) Michel Foucault's impact on the German historiography of criminal justice, social discipline, and medicalization; (7) the American and the German Juvenile Court; (8) the medicalization of criminal law reform in Imperial Germany; (9) prison reform in 19th century Europe; (10) the Casa di Correzione of San Michele a Ripa in Rome; and (11) the history and possible future of solitary confinement in Germany. Notes, tables, figures, index