Within Prison Walls Being a Narrative of Personal Experience During a Week of Voluntary Confinement: In the State Prison at Auburn, New York

By Thomas Mott Osborne

Book Overview

"Thomas Mott Osborne investigated the conditions inside the prison and wrote a scathing study of its effects." -Janet Miron, 'Prisons, Asylums, and the Public: Institutional Visiting in the Nineteenth... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1530509726
• ISBN13: 9781530509720
• Release Date: March 2016
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 150 Pages
• Weight: 0.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Original written in 1914 of inhumane inmate conditions

Within Prison Walls is a shocking yet heartwarming description of conditions at Auburn Prison written by an humanitarian warden who submitted himself to a one-week experience as an inmate. Reading it is painful, and requires frequent interruptions for recovery from the descriptions and for reflection on the horrors of the treatment given and the attitudes shown to prisoners. They are seen as less than human beings, and, sadly, essentially little has changed since this 1914 description. The author, Warden Tom Osborne shows his strength of character and his empathy in his goal of prison reform. It reads well and should be required reading for all concerned with penology, mental health, sociology and studies of the seemingly immutable sadism that is imbedded in human nature. The current reprinting has beenn edited and carried out by the author's son, and possesses historic value.