The Quaker era in American corrections is traditionally characterized in criminological literature as the brief experiment with substitution of imprisonment for the sanguinary corporal and capital punishments of England and the other colonies by William Penn in 1682, and as the subsequent rebirth of the philosophy by Philadelphia Quakers between 1790-1840. / The premise underlying this research is that the origin and evolution of American correctional philosophy cannot be fully and accurately understood from any perspective that limits the Quaker influence to early periods of American history. The study elaborates the direct and indirect influence of a Quaker social reform movement which began in Europe in 1670 and continues today as a vital and viable force behind correctional public policy in the United States. Although the strength and impact of the Quaker social reform movement, the "holy experiment," as William Penn termed it, has waxed and waned over the past three centuries, the efforts of the Society of Friends to attain social justice in correctional reform has been a continuous social reform movement. / The present research interprets the Quaker correctional reforms in America as a single social movement which evolved in distinct stages over a period of three hundred years. The theoretical frame of reference is a social contextual perspective, which considers the events in the social, political and economic context of the time. / The evolution of the American correctional philosophy can be seen as a single, extended social movement which began with the Quaker persecution in Europe and the subsequent migration to America; evolved into an utopian effort to establish a new and better means of dealing with the criminal; and, further developed into a reform effort, diffusing the gospel of the "penitentiary" and the new "prison discipline." Its basic philosophy remained for the next one hundred years the foundation of American correctional policy, only to be reexamined in the mid-twentieth century and found wanting by the same reformers who established it, and the struggle for reform began again. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-03, Section: A, page: 1068. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75784 |
| Contributors | CROMWELL, PAUL FRANK., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 211 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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