The penitentiary was framed as a progressive reform of its era.

Evidence

As is indicated in the designation “penitentiary/7 imprisonment was regarded as rehabilitative and the penitentiary prison was devised to provide convicts with the conditions for reflecting on their crimes and, through penitence, for reshaping their habits and even their souls. Although some antislavery advocates spoke out against this new system of punishment during the revolutionary period, the penitentiary was generally viewed as a progressive reform, linked to the larger campaign for the rights of citizens. — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 64

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Foucault’s history of the prison as progressive reform, and to the broader irony that Enlightenment reform built the carceral state. — connects to: Reform has been built into the prison since its origin; Prison reform rhetoric reinforces the prison’s permanence.; Reform rhetoric bolsters prison permanence and cannot meet corporate-era challenges — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 266

Related

• Reform has always been proposed as the remedy for the prison’s failure (similarity 0.88)
• Rehabilitation has been displaced by incapacitation as prison’s goal (similarity 0.86)
• Reform rhetoric bolsters prison permanence and cannot meet corporate-era challenges (similarity 0.86)
• Prison reform is an integral part of the prison’s functioning, not its antidote (similarity 0.86)
• Prison reform rhetoric reinforces the prison’s permanence. (similarity 0.84)
• The prison’s failure, reform, and discipline form one simultaneous carceral system (similarity 0.84)
• The eighteenth-century novel helped produce the penitentiary (similarity 0.84)
• Prison resists reform because it relays a broad network of disciplines and surveillances. (similarity 0.84)
• The penitentiary made incarceration itself the punishment for the first time. (similarity 0.84)
• The prison was originally embraced as a humane replacement for capital and corporal punishment. (similarity 0.83)
• The penitentiary mirrored chattel slavery in its structure and daily regime. (similarity 0.83)
• Prison integrated correctional transformation into legal detention from the start (similarity 0.83)
• Reform-centered frameworks marginalize decarceration strategies (similarity 0.83)
• Prison persists as a detestable solution no alternative replaces (similarity 0.82)
• Modern universal imprisonment was not the reformers’ original design (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Reform has been built into the prison since its origin #corroborates (0.70)
• Prison reform rhetoric reinforces the prison’s permanence. #expands (0.60)
• Reform rhetoric bolsters prison permanence and cannot meet corporate-era challenges #expands (0.60) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 266