ABSTRACT
Acutely dissatisfied with existing conditions of incarceration but convinced that some offenders would have to be confined, they were confident of their ability to effect rehabilitation behind as well as outside the walls. Both generations of reformers believed that the penitentiary could cure the criminal. Their strategies, however, differed markedly. Both generations of reformers believed that the penitentiary could cure the criminal. Their strategies, however, differed markedly. The task may well have appeared formidable. After all, every state prison held anywhere from one thousand to three thousand inmates in an environment that at best resembled a factory. The inevitable consequence of such a system had to be pervasive brutality. The broad Progressive intention to redesign the prison on the model of the community persisted as a favorite precept for reformers through the 1920's and 1930's. Psychiatrists were not completely satisfied with formulation and they brought a second model to prison reform, the model of the prison as hospital.
