Historical Perspectives on American Incarceration, from the Early Republic to the Late Twentieth Century

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

This panel brings together four presentations exploring significant episodes throughout American penal history. Ranging in their approach, from case study to national survey to semiotic analysis, each work pays close attention to the importance of the social-historical context of the period examined. Together, these presentations help us to better understand larger penal processes, including the role of silence in developing of correctional policy, changing administrative attitudes toward drug treatment, ideas relating to the temporary housing of local criminal populations, and the transmission of inmate values beyond national boundaries.

Sub Unit

• Area VII: Criminal Justice Policy and Practice / 38: Corrections

Individual Presentations

• Sentences of Silence: Order, Morality, and Labor in Auburn Penitentiary - Chase Burton, University of California, Berkeley

• Methadon’t: African Americans and Methadone Maintenance, 1969-1977 - Kyle Bridge, University of Florida

• The Fault is in the System: Jail Reform in the United States from 1790 to 1945 - Stephen Tillotson, Texas State University

• Marking Time: American Convict Tattoos in a Global Context, 1900-1940 - Alexander Tepperman, University of Florida

Chair

• Kyle Bridge, University of Florida

Discussant

• Heather Schoenfeld, Northwestern University