Practice
of "separate confinement"
The PPS was influenced by many European
thinkers and reformers. "America" was formed by 13 colonies—and as
colonies depended upon trade with the various European
nations whose citizens made up the diverse colonial population.
Ideas traveled back
and forth across the Atlantic in sync with the exchange of goods and
services.
Why Philadelphia? Since
a puffed up, patriotic and quite simplistic story of origins
quickly developed as popular history as the new
nation fought and struggled to survive, all the era's actors are
often endowed with virtues,
intellect
and
a
courage
that ill fits the reality of the times. Philadelphia was simply
a "big city." An international port. And the place
where the revolutionary action was high. A bit flip though it
might seem, it was the San
Francisco
of its day (less than being the Washington, D.C. of its day).
Then, there was the Quakers.
In some criminological texts, the penitentiary notion is attributed
as originating with the
Quakers. There is a somewhat amusing leap from
the Friend's practice of sitting in silent groups waiting upon
the Holy Spirit to stir them
to assuming that the quietness associated with separate confinement
was derived from this experience.
The word "penitentiary" has
much more of a Calvinistic, even Catholic
(through the American Anglicans, the Episcopalians), ring
and heritage.
First use of the term is often attributed to the English penal reformer, John
Howard. Nevertheless, for the Quakers "doing good" was an essential daily spiritual task. Their
high percentage of membership in the PPS attest to their commitment
to penal reform.
What was the goal of the
penitentiary? PPS members did not compose a developmental
plan styled on our contemporary fashion of stating goals, vision,
mission, etc. For them, the singular biblical citation from
the gospel
of Matthew 25:36 expressed their personal goal: "Naked, and
ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited
me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me." (King James version) They
achieved this through weekly visitations and conversations with the inmates.
Continue—PPS
