science

The Rise of the Penitentiary

The Rise of the Penitentiary is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The Rise of the Penitentiary rather than just read about it. In short: The Rise of the Penitentiary: Prisons and Punishment in Early America is a history of the origins of the penitentiary in the United States, depicting its beginnings and expansion. It was written by Adam J.

Key takeaways

The Rise of the Penitentiary belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The Rise of the Penitentiary to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The Rise of the Penitentiary from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Rise of the Penitentiary: Prisons and Punishment in Early America is a history of the origins of the penitentiary in the United States, depicting its beginnings and expansion. It was written by Adam J. Hirsch and published by Yale University Press on June 24, 1992.

Synopsis This book explores the ideas used to justify imprisoning people as punishment in the early United States. Hirsch, the author, uses Massachusetts as the template. He traces how ideas about prisons transition from being discussed in theory to becoming physical buildings and implemented systems. Hirsch also shows that there wasn't just one compelling reason behind favoring penitentiaries as a solution. There were many conflicting beliefs. Thus, this made prison philosophy complicated and ultimately deficient. Hirsch argues that the idea of using prisons as punishment was based on three different lines of thinking that came together. First, there were ideas from 17th century England about workhouses. It was believed that workhouses reduce crime and poverty by teaching new skills to people who were incarcerated. Second, there was the 18th century European concept of "rational criminology." This approach suggested that if punishments were consistent and not based on the death penalty, crime could be controlled by the state. Finally, derived from late 18th century England was the idea of "reclamation." This philanthropic belief held that prisons could not only retrain people, but actually change their entire personality and character.

See also Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault Penitentiaries, Reformatories, and Chain Gangs by Mark Colvin The Rise of the Penitentiary in New York by W. David Lewis The History of United States prison systems The Penitentiary

References

Further reading Hirsch, Adam J. (1982). "From Pillory to Penitentiary: The Rise of Criminal Incarceration in Early Massachusetts". Michigan Law Review. 80 (6): 1179–1269. doi:10.2307/1288577. JSTOR 1288577. Free PDF download Rothman, David J. (1997). "Perfecting the Prison: United States, 1789-1865". The Oxford History of the Prison. pp. 100–116. doi:10.1093/oso/9780195118148.003.0004. ISBN 978-0-19-511814-8. Free PDF download. Adamson, Christopher (2001). "Evangelical Quakerism and the Early American Penitentiary Revisited: The Contributions of Thomas Eddy, Roberts Vaux, John Griscom, Stephen Grellet, Elisha Bates, and Isaac Hopper". Quaker History. 90 (2): 35–58. doi:10.1353/qkh.2001.0016. JSTOR 41947469. S2CID 159619264. Bourque, Monique (1993). "Reviewed work: The Rise of the Penitentiary: Prisons and Punishment in Early America, Adam H. Hirsch". Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies. 60 (2): 220–221. JSTOR 27773625. Crocker, Ruth (1994). "Reviewed work: The Rise of the Penitentiary: Prisons and Punishment in Early America, Adam J. Hirsch". Journal of Social History. 27 (3): 641–643. doi:10.1353/jsh/27.3.641. JSTOR 3789010. Donnelly, Michael (1994). "Reviewed work: The Rise of the Penitentiary: Prisons and Punishment in Early America., Adam J. Hirsch". Contemporary Sociology. 23 (1): 116–117. doi:10.2307/2074919. JSTOR 2074919.

External links Official website Damon Horowitz: Philosophy in prison. Video. Ted Talks, 2011. YouTube.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The Rise of the Penitentiary

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The Rise of the Penitentiary claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The Rise of the Penitentiary before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The Rise of the Penitentiary ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The Rise of the Penitentiary

In research: The Rise of the Penitentiary appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The Rise of the Penitentiary in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The Rise of the Penitentiary is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1992 English-language non-fiction books, 1992 non-fiction books, American non-fiction books, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The Rise of the Penitentiary outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The Rise of the Penitentiary in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The Rise of the Penitentiary means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The Rise of the Penitentiary out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The Rise of the Penitentiary in simple terms?

Why does The Rise of the Penitentiary matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The Rise of the Penitentiary?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The Rise of the Penitentiary.