What is it about?
Topically, this article is about the relationship between proto-prisons (America's first-generation prisons) and capital punishment. Theoretically, it's about how new penal reforms don't supplant existing punishments but act as a new layer on the penal landscape.
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Why is it important?
The article provides a new model for thinking about penal reforms and penal change. Using geological layers as a metaphor, penal reforms act as accretions that layer upon one after another.
Perspectives
Some scholars describe proto-prisons as the replacement for capital punishment. Instead, this article shows that the relationship was more complex---sometimes, prisons made it possible for states to restrict their use of capital punishment.
Ashley T Rubin
University of Hawaii at Mānoa
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Penal change as penal layering: A case study of proto-prison adoption and capital punishment reduction, 1785-1822, Punishment & Society, April 2016, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1462474516641376.
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