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Acceptable Prison: Official Discourse, Truth and Legitimacy in the Nineteenth Century (From Crime, Truth and Justice: Official Inquiry, Discourse, Knowledge, P 71-88, 2004, George Gilligan and John Pratt, eds., -- See NCJ-204857)

NCJ Number
204861
Author(s)
John Pratt
Date Published
2004
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This chapter discusses the rationalization and legitimation of prisons in 19th century England.
Abstract
Prisons have come to be seen as mysterious places shrouded by a bureaucratic cloak of secrecy. However, this was not always the case. The second half of the 19th century witnessed an explosion of prison discourses and a succession of formal inquiries into prisons. The opening of the Pentonville model prison in 1842 put an end to open public discourse about prisons by exerting considerable influence on subsequent prison building and design. Additionally, the result of the succession of formal inquiries about prison actually served to stifle competing and contestable accounts of the truth about prison. The official discourse was put forth as the only true discourse regarding prison. The author describes the rationalization of the prison process in which prison regimes were standardized with regard to treatment of prisoners. Critical discourses emerged regarding the “palace prison” in which food was plentiful and rich and warm baths were offered to new inmates upon entry. These discourses held these model prisons out as unacceptable in that the living conditions were better than those of the average working-class citizen. The author illustrates how the official prison discourse that upheld the tenets of cleanliness and a healthful diet was muted by the critical and competing discourse of prisoners as privileged citizens living in palaces. The result was another succession of official inquiries designed to reduce the luxuries of prisons. These inquiries produced official discourses that broke the link between diet and health and that promoted hard physical labor as punitive measures to ensure the suffering of inmates. To ensure that this discourse became the only acceptable way to speak about prison, the role of central bureaucratic management grew to restrict departures from standards. The Prisons Act of 1865 put an official stamp on the whole operation by standardizing conditions throughout the entire prison system; and the Prisons Act of 1877 put the finishing touches on the centralization and unification of the prison system. In the end, the authority of the prison system to control the official truth about prison did not end critical discourses, but it did result in muting and refuting tales of prison that countered the official version. Notes, bibliography