Imprisonment in Europe and America from the Middle Ages to the Present

Catalog description

This course looks at theories and practices of incarceration in the West, from the Middle Ages to the present, emphasizing changing purposes and rationales. It was only in the nineteenth century that prisons came to be a primary way of punishing people for crimes: the course will consider the reasons for this transition, as well as earlier practices of using prisons in the context of hostage-taking, sanctuary and surveillance. We explore the attitudes of state authorities and reformers and the experiences of many kinds of prisoners (Prisoners of War, debtors, religious dissidents and political prisoners as well as convicts). (HIST-HEU)