Redemption to Reform: The Intellectual Origins of the Prison Reform Movement

Abstract:     
In the late Nineteenth Century, major shifts within the criminal justice system and within society at large led to the transformation of the concept of rehabilitation from a religious and spiritual process ("redemptive rehabilitation") to a medicalized and rationalized process ("reformative rehabilitation"). This paper illustrates that shift through the lens of the process leading to the formation of the first American system of parole at the first adult reformatory prison, Elmira Reformatory.

Keywords: criminal justice, prison, prison reform, penal reform, rehabilitation, parole, elmira, brockway

Working Paper Series