European and US Influences on the 19th Century Prison Reform

Abstract

On 19th century, imprisonment became the principal penalty of western societies due to the triumph of Enlightenment movement for humanization of punishments and Rationalist philosophy. Prison reform became an international issue, and liberal states had to build from nothing a new penalty system, transforming the ancient and obsolete Old Regime’s punishments. Social reality and new legal principles promoted this important legislative reform in the United States of America and many European countries, which reciprocally analysed and studied their different penitentiary laws and models in order to transplant or adapt their major achievements. This paper aims to draw the main European an US influences at this early stage of prison reform.