Bentham wrote extensively about prison reform. His creative architectural design for a prison was called the panopticon. The cell blocks, or wings of the panopticon, came off a central hub, allowing custodians of the prison population, stationed in the hub, to have a constant visual assessment of what was happening in each of the cell blocks.35
Cesare Lombroso’s early attempt to approach crime scientifically provoked the greatest amount of discussion in America. He based his theories on his experiences in Italian social and educational services, first as the director of a mental institution, then as a professor of psychiatry, and finally as a professor of criminal anthropology. He argued, based on his detailed study of the physiognomy of offenders, that criminals had consistent physical characteristics that could be cataloged and then used to trace convicted offenders or identify potential offenders. The fact that he claimed his system could spot criminals before they committed crimes was the most provocative and, ultimately, the weakest part of his method.
Lombroso further contended that criminals consisted of a class of people who were biologically atavistic, meaning that they displayed features of previous generations, sometimes far in the past. In the case of criminals, the features were genetic anomalies dating to a time before civilization. Lombroso, however, also advocated for reform of Italian prisons and for more constructive and reformative treatment of offenders. His views sparked great interest in heredity, the study of which was then in its infancy as a part of the relatively new science of anthropology.36
The prison reformers of the late nineteenth century made extensive use of the Lombroso catalogue of offender characteristics. Although eventually rejected on empirical evidence that it did not work and replaced by theories of environmental influence on offenders, the catalog concept became the forerunner of the more effective means of identifying offenders, such as fingerprint patterns, which proved to be unique to every person.37
The outstanding contribution to the philosophical and scientific culture of the late nineteenth century was undoubtedly the seminal work of Charles Darwin. His concept of evolution had both negative and positive impacts. Negatively, it led to social Darwinism—an assumption that Darwin’s ideas about natural selection could explain the obvious difference of social status, class, and race that existed in society. As biologist Stephen Jay Gould’s phrased it, “In Darwin’s theory, competition is the great regulator.”38
One extreme consequence within social Darwinism was a presumption that nonproductive and antisocial citizens were what they were by the process of natural selection. Since that was a biological consequence, none in those categories were merited the use of society’s resources to lift them to a better life, heal them of their illnesses, or reform their criminality. Social Darwinism flourished for over three-quarters of a century after Darwin’s Origin of the Species was published in 1859 and continues to reappear as a covert assumption. But Richard Hofstadter’s definitive study of the movement, Social Darwinism in American Thought, demonstrates that Darwin’s discoveries were socially neutral and could be co-opted out of context for quite contradictory purposes.
On the positive side Darwin’s evolutionary theory enabled other religious leaders of the latter part of the nineteenth century to apply in a completely different way the ideas of evolution and progress. In New England the revised Calvinist teaching of Nathaniel William Taylor, that individuals could will their own salvation, was compatible with Darwin’s struggle for survival. The conviction of Horace Bushnell that people could change to meet the ever-changing demands of their environment merged easily with Darwin’s concept of evolution.39
As the century came to a close, a growing portion of Jewish and Christian thought also embraced the rationalist, more materialistic assumption that all acts had a natural, physical cause, including and perhaps especially crime and antisocial behavior. The scientific method as well as the research of Darwin had produced a new way of viewing social problems. After Darwin, criminality could no longer be seen as inevitable or permanent, at least for most offenders. There were environmental factors, as well as personal deficiencies, that could provide a basis for criminal activity.
A major portion of this group, many from Christian perspectives, gradually formed into a dissenting movement away from the competitive interpretation of social Darwinism. The values of humanitarianism were affirmed as well as an intense desire for a more compassionate and justice-oriented society. The movement came to be labeled the Social Gospel. Its foremost proponents came from a variety of religious backgrounds. For example, Rev. Washington Gladden was a Congregationalist; Rev. Walter Rauschenbusch was a Lutheran; William Dwight Porter Bliss was an Episcopalian.
The Social Gospel was part of a larger political movement, which eventually was called the Progressive movement. Its primary focus was still economic, with a focus on poverty relief, workers’ rights, and taxation, with occasional glances at the issues of criminal justice. At the core of their activity was a belief in the inevitability of progress. From the point of view of the Social Gospel, God could be seen working both from outside and within the created order, enabling all humanity, with its God-given free will, to evolve to a new level. Humans, whether at the top or bottom of the ladder, were capable with the proper assistance of becoming strong, self-conscious co-creators of a better society. The ideas of the Social Gospel and Progressivism were fought tooth and nail by the conservative evangelical Christians and secular conservatives of the day.
Horace Bushnell’s seminal ideas about shaping human development through individualized Christian education were perhaps the most influential religious factors in the formation of prison reform in New England. Bushnell’s theology was translated, as the century ended, into progressive theories of public education and moral training for both children and adults. It was a short step to apply Bushnell’s ideas to the reeducation of youthful delinquents and even adult criminals. It may be that the fittest survive in each generation, but anyone could join the ranks of the fittest with the proper guidance. With these ideas, coupled with the Social Gospel, more and more people began to assume that surviving and thriving were not just natural occurrences within a rigid biological framework. They were within the capacity of everyone.
By the 1870s a unique combination of philosophical penology, scientific discoveries, and Protestant theological liberal thought was an important part of the intellectual landscape, particularly in Connecticut. It gave credibility to the possibilities that all people can change in ways never before imagined in the old Puritan framework. In a much more flexible way, it was now considered feasible that offenders might change for the better. It created an atmosphere of hope for advocates of prison reform and encouraged the move away from society’s dependence on incarceration and discipline to tame the beast of criminality.
In addition to Bushnell, several other connections provide suggestive influences that were probably at work within the Connecticut prison reform movement. For example, Francis Wayland’s tenure as dean of the Yale Law School coincided with the addition of William Graham Sumner (the preeminent social Darwinist of the age) to the Yale faculty in the 1872.40 We also know that both Wayland and Noah Porter (a progressive preacher) were among the founders of the CPA and that Washington Gladden (one of the foremost Social Gospel advocates) was Horace Bushnell’s close friend.41 Bushnell (a strong believer that people can transcend their environment by education) was one of the Hartford leaders who helped to sponsor a major public meeting on prison reform in 1873.
When that background of connections is added to the history outlined earlier, it is clear that the CPA’s founders were immersed in a unique context made up of theology, science, and philosophy. The choices made by those who gathered to create a new prison reform agency represented a perspective shaped by the new penology initiated by John Howard, influenced