ABSTRACT
Americans' understanding of the causes of deviant behavior led directly to the invention of the penitentiary as a solution. The focus of attention was not simply on whether the penitentiary accomplished its goals, but on the merits of the two competing modes of organization. The content of the debate between the Auburn and Pennsylvania camps points to the significance of the ideas on the causes of crime to the creation of the penitentiary, and the zeal reflects the expectations held about the innovation. The penitentiary, free of corruptions and dedicated to the proper training of the inmate, would inculcate the discipline that negligent parents, evil companions, taverns, houses of prostitution, theaters, and gambling halls had destroyed. The penitentiary by its discovery and verification of proper principles of social organization, would serve as a model for the entire society. The separate system of penitentiary organization promised to accomplish these ends with a minimum of distraction and complication.
