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Understanding Prisons: The New Old Penology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

John J. DiIulio Jr.
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Type
Review Essay
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , Winter 1991 , pp. 65 - 99
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 1991 

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References

1 Austin, James & McVey, Aaron David, The 1989 NCCD Prison Population Forecast: The Impact of the War on Drugs (San Francisco: National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 1989). James Austin & Aaron David McVey, The 1989 NCCD Prison Population Forecast: The Impact of the War on Drugs (San Francisco: National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 1989).Google Scholar

2 National Council of State Legislatures (NCSL), Legislative Finance Papers (Denver: NCSL, 1987).Google Scholar

3 Federal Bureau of Prisons, State of the Bureau 1988 (Washington, D.C.: Federal Bureau of Prisons, 1988).Google Scholar

4 For a range of expert views, see the symposium sponsored by the General Accounting Office (GAO) and published as “America's Overcrowded Prisons,” GAO Journal, No. 7, Fall 1989, at 22.Google Scholar

5 For an analysis suggesting that incarceration is highly cost effective, see Zedlewski, Edwin,” Making Confinement Decisions” (Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Justice, 1987). For a critique of Zedlewski's analysis, see Franklin Zimring SL Gordon Hawkins,” The New Mathematics of Imprisonment,”Crime & Delinq., October 1988. For an influential popularization of Zedlewski's analysis, see Richard B. Abell,” Beyond Willie Horton: The Battle of the Prison Bulge,” Policy Review, Spring 1989, at 89. For a presentation of the complexities of gauging correctional costs, see Douglas C. McDonald, The Cost of Corrections: In Search of the Bottom Line (Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Corrections, 1989).Google Scholar

6 For general discussion, see Petersilia, Joan, Expanding Options for Criminal Sentencing (Santa Monica, Cal.: Rand Corporation, 1987), and DiIulio, John J., Jr.,” Punishing Smarter: Penal Reforms for the 1990's,”Brookings Rev., Summer 1989, at 3.Google Scholar

7 For general discussions, see Paul, Gendreau &. Robert, R. Ross, “Revivification of Rehabilitations: Evidence from the 1980's,” Justice Q., Sept. 1987, at 349, and Sarah Glazer, “Can Prisons Rehabilitate Criminals?”Cong. Q.: Editorial Research Rep., Vol. 2, No. 5 (Aug. 4, 1989).Google Scholar

8 For a pro-privatization argument, see Charles H. Logan, Private Prisons: Cons and Pros (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). For an anti-privatization argument, see John J. DiIulio, Jr.,” What's Wrong with Private Prisons,”Public Interest, Summer 1988, at 66.Google Scholar

9 For a general discussion, see John J. DiIulio, Jr., ed., Courts, Corrections, and the Constitution: The Impact of Judicial Intervention on Prisons and Jails (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) (“Delulio, Courts”).Google Scholar

10 For a general discussion, see DiIulio, John J., Jr., No Escape: The Future of American Corrections (New York: Basic Books, 1991) (“DiIulio, No Escape”).Google Scholar

11 For a general discussion, see DiIulio, John J., Jr., Governing Prisons: A Comparative Study of Correctional Management (New York: Free Press, 1987) (“DiIulio, Governing Prisons”), especially chs. 1 and 6, and the following sample of critical discussions of the book: John Conrad,” Research and Development in Corrections: Death on a Cyclone Fence,”Fed. Probation, March 1988; Jim Thomas, book review, J. Pol & Mil Soc, Spring 1988, at 123; Hans Toch, book review, Society, March/April 1989, at 86; DiIulio, John J., Jr., &. Hans Toch,” Governing Prisons: A Debate,” Society, July/Aug. 1989, at 81. Also see Irwin, John,” Donald Cressey and the Sociology of the Prison,” 34 Crime & Delinq. 328 (1988), and Bert Useem,” Correctional Management: How to Govern Our ‘Cities,’”Corrections Today, Feb. 1990, at 88, 90, 94.Google Scholar

12 Useem, Corrections Today at 88.Google Scholar

13 Gustave de Beaumont &. Alexis de Tocqueville, On the Penitentiary System of the United States and France, trans. Francis Lieber (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea &. Blanchard, 1833) (“Beaumont &. Tocqueville, Penitentiary System”).Google Scholar

14 For example, see Boesche, Roger,” The Prison: Tocqueville's Model for Despotism,” 33 W. Pol. Q. 550 (1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 Beaumont & Tocqueville, Penitentiary System 28–29. They were especially fond of Superintendent Elam Lynde of Sing Sing and included parts of the transcript of their interviews with him in the book; see App. 11,” Conversation with Mr. Elam Lynde,” at 199–203. It should be noted, however, that they were not so favorably disposed to penal administrators who operated on a contract basis for profits; for example, see id. at 36–37.Google Scholar

16 Id. at 55.Google Scholar

17 Id. at 59.Google Scholar

18 For example, see id. at 104–7, 125–30.Google Scholar

19 For example, see id. at 50–51, 59–60. On balance, they judged the Philadelphia system better at preventing corruptive relations among inmates and effecting spiritual reformation, and the Auburn system better at inculcating habits of work and obedience: “If it be so, the Philadelphia system produces more honest men, and that of New York more obedient citizens” (at 60).Google Scholar

20 For example, see their discussion of the Auburn system in id., at 4–8.Google Scholar

21 Id. at xviii.Google Scholar

22 For example, see id. at 44–47. They acknowledged that “the penitentiary system in America is severe” (at 47). But they noted that the use of corporal punishments (i.e., whipping or “stripes”) at Auburn was “not so frequent as is believed”; the Philadelphia system, they reported, made no use of the whip (at 46).Google Scholar

23 Id. at 48–49; also at 21–27.Google Scholar

24 Id. at 27.Google Scholar

25 Lawes, Lewis E., Twenty Thousand Years in Sing Sing (New York: Ray Long & Richard R. Smith, Inc., 1932).Google Scholar

26 Id. at 65.Google Scholar

27 Id. at 104.Google Scholar

28 Id. at 103–4.Google Scholar

29 Id. at 104.Google Scholar

30 Id. at 105.Google Scholar

31 Id.Google Scholar

32 Id. at 106–7.Google Scholar

33 Id. at 101.Google Scholar

34 Id. at 107.Google Scholar

35 Id.Google Scholar

36 Parts of the discussion that follow in this section are taken from DiIulio, Governing Prisons ch. 1 (cited in note 11).Google Scholar

37 Clemmer, Donald, The Prison Community (New York: Rinehart & Co., 1958; first published 1940).Google Scholar

38 Id. at xii.Google Scholar

39 Id. at 59.Google Scholar

40 Id. at 131.Google Scholar

41 Id. at 314; emphasis added.Google Scholar

42 Id. at 20.Google Scholar

43 Id. at 186.Google Scholar

44 Id. at 186, 190.Google Scholar

45 Sykes, Gresham M., The Society of Captives (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1958) (“Sykes, Society of Captives”).Google Scholar

46 Id. at xii.Google Scholar

47 Id. at 5.Google Scholar

48 Id. at xiv.Google Scholar

49 Id. at xv.Google Scholar

50 Id. at 134.Google Scholar

51 Id. at 126.Google Scholar

52 Id. at 124.Google Scholar

53 See DiIulio, Governing Prisons 23–26, and DiIulio & Toch, Society, July/Aug. 1989 (both cited in note 11).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54 Sykes, Society of Captives 129.Google Scholar

55 Social Science Research Council (SSRC), Theoretical Studies in Social Organization of the Prison (New York: SSRC, 1960).Google Scholar

56 Useem, Corrections Today at 90 (cited in note 11).Google Scholar

57 See Ragen, Joseph with Finestone, Charles, Inside the World's Toughest Prison (Spring field, III.: Thomas, Charles C., 1962). For a mixed account of Ragen's career, see Jacobs, James B., Stateville: The Penitentiary in Mass Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977).Google Scholar

58 DiIulio, Governing Prisons (cited in note 11).Google Scholar

59 For one account, see David, C. Anderson, “The Price of Safety: 'I Can't Go Back Out There',” 6 Corrections Mag. 6 (1980).Google Scholar

60 Abbott, Jack, In the Belly of the Beast (1981).Google Scholar

61 Remick, Peter with Shuman, James B., In Constant Fear (New York: Reader's Digest Press, 1975) (“Remick, In Constant Fear”).Google Scholar

62 Id.Google Scholar

63 Irwin, John, Prisons in Turmoil (Boston: Little, Brown, 1980) (“Irwin, Prisons”).Google Scholar

64 Cressey, Donald R.,” Foreword,”in id. at ix (“Cressey, ‘Foreword’”).Google Scholar

65 Cressey, Donald R., ed., The Prison: Studies in Institutional Organization and Change (New York: Rinehart, Winston, 1961) (“Cressey, The Prison”).Google Scholar

66 Cressey, Donald R.,” Prison Organizations,” in March, James G., ed., Handbook of Organizations 1023–70 (New York: Rand McNally, 1965); also see his “Contradictory Directives in Complex Organizations: The Case of the Prison,” 4 Ad. Sci. Q. 1 (1959).Google Scholar

67 Sutherland, Edwin H. &. Cressey, Donald R., Criminology 511 (9th ed. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1974).Google Scholar

68 Irwin, John, The Felon (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970).Google Scholar

69 Cressey,” Foreword,” at viii (cited in note 64).Google Scholar

70 Id.Google Scholar

71 Irwin, Prisons at xxiii.Google Scholar

72 Id. at 124–26, 248.Google Scholar

73 Id. at 241.Google Scholar

74 Id. at 248.Google Scholar

75 McCoy, John, Concrete Mama: Prison Profiles from Walla Walla 193 (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1981).Google Scholar

76 Stastny, Charles & Trynauer, Gabrielle, Who Rules the Joint? The Changing Political Culture of Maximum-Security Prisons in America 4 (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1982).Google Scholar

77 Id. at 214.Google Scholar

78 Among his many influential works, see Wilson, James Q., Thinking About Crime (rev. ed. New York: Basic Books, 1983), and (with Hernstein, Richard J.), Crime and Human Nature (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987).Google Scholar

79 See, e.g., James Q. Wilson, Varieties of Police Behavior (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986); Political Organizations (New York: Basic Books, 1973); The Investigators (New York: Basic Books, 1978); ed., The Politics of Regulation (New York: Basic Books, 1980); and Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do and Why They Do It (New York: Basic Books, 1989).Google Scholar

80 For a general statement of that interest, see John J. DiIulio, Jr.,” Recovering the Public Management Variable: Lessons from Schools, Prisons, and Armies,”Pub. Ad Rev., March/April 1989, at 127–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

81 For one example, see James Coleman et al, High School Achievement (New York: Basic Books, 1982). For an overview, see Edward B. Fiske,” New Look at Effective Schools,”N.Y. Times. 15 April 1984, sec. 12. For a refinement of the “effective schools” literature, see Chubb, John & Terry, Moe, What Price Democracy? (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1990).Google Scholar

82 For a discussion of some of these studies, see DiIulio, No Escape (cited in note 10), and id., Brookings Rev. (cited in note 6).Google Scholar

83 For an overgenerous example, see William K. Muir, book review, 82 Am Pol. Sci. Rev. 1374 (1988). The research as reported in the dissertation won the American Political Science Association's 1987 Leonard D. White Award. The only reason I note that fact is that the award is given to a work in the field of public administration and policy studies.Google Scholar

84 For a short list of these reactions, see note 11 above.Google Scholar

85 Irwin, 34 Crime & Delinq. 335 (cited in note 11).Google Scholar

86 Crouch, Ben M. &. Marquart, James W., An Appeal to Justice (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989). For an analysis of the Texas prison system in relation to judicial intervention which juxtaposes the competing views of Crouch and Marquart, DiIulio, and Sheldon E land-Olson & Steve Martin, see DiIulio, Courts chs. 2, 3, 4, &. 11 (cited in note 9).Google Scholar

87 DiIulio, Governing Prisons ch. 6 (cited in note 11).Google Scholar

88 Id.Google Scholar

89 Useem, Corrections Today at 94 (cited in note 11). In addition to ch. 6 of Governing Prisons, I would highlight note 13 of that chapter and my 27 Sept. 1989 testimony before the House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee relating to “boot camp” facilities.Google Scholar

90 Among the systems where this is true, I would include (as of this writing) Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. On the last see John J. DiIulio, Jr., Barbed Wire Bureaucracy: Leadership and Administration in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, 1930–1990 (New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).Google Scholar

91 Howard, Binda, “Effects of Increased Security on Prison Violence,” 3 J. Crim. Just. 33 (1975).Google Scholar

92 Lee Bowker, Prisoner Subcultures 115 (Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Boos, 1977).Google Scholar

93 Id. at 125.Google Scholar

94 Sykes, Society of Captives 134 (cited in note 45).Google Scholar

95 Useem, Corrections Today at 94.Google Scholar

96 See DiIulio, No Escape 134 (cited in note 10).Google Scholar

97 See John J. DiIulio, Jr., Keeping the Balance: The Future of Corrections in Wisconsin (report to the Wisconsin Institute of Policy Studies, forthcoming).Google Scholar

98 For example, see Richard McCleery,” Authoritarianism and the Belief System of Incorrigibles,” in Cressey, The Prison 260 (cited in note 65).Google Scholar

99 For example, see George H. Grosser,” Introduction,” in SSRC, Theoretical Studies (cited in note 55).Google Scholar

100 For example, see Irwin, The Felon (cited in note 60), and Irwin, Prisons (cited in note 63).Google Scholar

101 For example, see Lombardo, Lucien, Guards Imprisoned: Correctional Officers at Work (Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson, 1976; 2d ed. 1989).Google Scholar

102 For an inmate's view of the Walpole horrors, see Remick, In Constant Fear (cited in note 61).Google Scholar

103 John J. DiIulio, Jr.,” The Corrections Officer: A Study of Administrative Behavior” (unpublished, Department of Government, Harvard University, 1981).Google Scholar