The Fault is in the System: Jail Reform in the United States from 1790 to 1945

• In Event: Historical Perspectives on American Incarceration, from the Early Republic to the Late Twentieth Century

Abstract

Although jail reform has recently gained increased attention in the wake of California’s Prison Realignment, few scholars have explored previous movements to reform county jails. Drawing on a combination of official reports, legislation, and reform society publications, this paper analyzes changing strategies and objectives of jail reform from the American Revolution until the Second World War. Initially, reform efforts of the antebellum period employed an exhortative approach, hoping to convince – rather than coerce – county officials to make desired changes. Yielding to cynicism over initial failures, post-Civil War reformers attempted to regulate jails through a combination of legislative efforts and newly formed State Boards of Correction. Pivoting again, in the initial decades of the 20th century, reformers sought to remove jails from the auspices of local government, arguing that all local penal institutions should be transferred to centralized state control. To contextualize these developments, this paper links jail reform efforts to general penal shifts, including technologies of prisoner management, strategies of rehabilitation, and emergent attempts at professionalizing prison administration.

Author

• Stephen Tillotson, Texas State University