ABSTRACT
During the American Civil War (1861-1865), American interest in penology did not disappear, but it occupied a minor place in the public consciousness.
When the Friends of Penal Reform held a national meeting at Philadelphia in
the autumn of 1859, only eight states and three prison societies were represented. Yet the basis for postwar developments was being laid. In 1862, young
Enoch Wines was appointed secretary of the New York Prison Association,
bringing new and enthusiastic leadership to that group. In association with Theodore Dwight, Wines undertook an ambitious survey of penal institutions
in the northern United States and several Canadian provinces, leading to their
1867 publication of the Report on the Prisons and Reformatories of the United States
Table 12.1 Time Line-Corrections in Modern America
and Canada, which was submitted to the Legislature of New York in January
1867. This work restated, in emphatic and expansive terms, the New York
Prison Association’s firm commitment to rehabilitation within prison walls. Widely read and enthusiastically received, the Report launched New York State
into a program of reformatory discipline that culminated in the construction
and operation of the Elmira Reformatory, completed in 1877.
