The Oxford History of the Prison: The Practice of Punishment in Western Society
by: Noval Morris, David J. Rothman (Editors)

Softcover. NY, Oxford University Press, reprint, 1998, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, Softcover, 425 pages, b&w illustrations. The word "prison" immediately evokes stark images: forbidding walls spiked with watchtowers; inmates confined to cramped cells for hours on end; the suspicious eyes of armed guards. They seem to be the inevitable and permanent marks of confinement, as though prisons were a timeless institution stretching from medieval stone dungeons to the current era of steel boxes. But centuries of development and debate lie behind the prison as we now know it--a rich history that reveals how our ideas of crime and practices of punishment have changed over time. Clean copy.