Correctional Forum June 2012

Bookcase
the furnaCe
PrisOns
and

reliGiOn

Of

affliCtiOn:
in

antebellum ameriCa

by Jennifer Graber
Review by Danielle Collins In The Furnace of Affliction, Jennifer Graber explores the historical intersections between prison and Protestantism in pre-Civil War America. Graber, an assistant professor of religious studies at Wooster College, places modern conceptions about prison and punishment in historical context and notes that debates about the purpose of prison have been ongoing for nearly two centuries. Policy and public discourse throughout the nations history have swung wildly between viewing prison as a way to punish people or as an experience to aid in their rehabilitation, or both. For much of the countrys history, religion was central to the debate on both sides. As Graber demonstrates, early Protestant reformers had many different notions about how prisons should function and even what their role should be but all agreed that the nations penal institutions should feature humane living conditions and practices. They operated under the religious notion that criminals can and should be redeemed, ing and group discipline with the Quaker external concern for other people. These influences and concerns led to his conception of the prison as a garden in which inmates reflected on their wrongdoings and engaged in wholesome, character-building activities. Eddys efforts were met with resistance from inmates who consistently rioted and attempted to escape, causing public officials to question the efficacy of Eddys religion-centered policies and remove the Quakers from the prison inspectors board. In contrast with the prison as garden, Eddys successors had a less gentle conception of the role of prisons in inmate reformation. Baptist minister Reverend John Stanford envisioned the prison as a furnace in which criminals necessarily experienced state-imposed physical and psychological pain in order to prepare them for redemption. Stanfords model was exported to prisons across the state, including Sing Sing (the successor to Newgate) and Auburn prison. In the ensuing years, explicitly religious dimensions of prison life were slowly marginalized. Protestant reformers theology of redemptive suffering was pushed aside for a religiosity of citizenship, in which ethical behavior and obedience to secular authority were tantamount. Secularization resulted in a system quite unlike either the garden or furnace Protestant reformers had envisioned. Secular prison officials heaped more and more degradation and physical punishment upon prisoners, and by the middle of the nineteenth century, prison conditions were widely acknowledged to be hellish. At this point, Protestant reformers shifted from attempts to influence the direction of prison life to critiquing harsh institutional conditions and practices. In their attempts to institutionalize religious beliefs and practices in the prison system and in society at large, antebellum Protestant reformers actually laid the foundation for a system that ultimately aimed at punishment rather than redemption.
For more information, go to: http://www.amazon.com/TheFurnace-Affliction-Religion-Antebellum/dp/0807834572/ref=sr _1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334332170&sr=8-1. This book is also available for Kindle and Nook.

Dr. Benjamin Rush advocated for strict but humane environments designed for reform.
and wanted to make sure that prisons worked toward this purpose. Operating out of these convictions, Protestant reformers were central players in the process of shaping early American prisons. Benjamin Rush, a Philadelphia physician, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and a founding member of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of the Public Prisons (now the Pennsylvania Prison Society), was among those who called for more humane practices in criminal justice. Rush advocated for strict but humane environments designed for reform, involving labor and solitary cells for the worst offenders. Working along side Rush at the PSAMPP were Pennsylvania Quakers who advocated for similar practices, along with Bible reading and silence. Quakers were also a visible presence in the development of prisons in New York State. Newgate Prison in New York City, the states oldest prison, was established as the result of efforts by Quaker merchant and philanthropist Thomas Eddy. As Graber writes, Eddys prison ideal combined these internal [Quaker] traditions of childrear4

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