I. Communicative Walls B. Penal Silence

Arguing about the Effects of Silent vs. Separate Penal Regimes

face of a prisoner

Beginning in the late 1820s, fierce debates raged about the relative merits of the silent (Auburn) system and the separate (Pennsylvania) system of suppressing prisoners’ communication. Authorities directly associated with the founding and administration of the Auburn prison and of the Eastern State Penitentiary naturally tended to support their respective sides. Other prison discipline authorities readily chose sides and argued vociferously for one system or the other.^ For example, the Rev. Louis Dwight, a founder and long-time secretary of the Boston Prison Discipline Society, championed the silent system. In a report to the Boston Prison Discipline Society in 1846, Samuel Gridley Howe, a well-born Boston physician, abolitionist, and advocate of education for the blind, vigorously endorsed the separate system. He thus directly challenged Dwight and other Boston-based supporters of the silent system.^

Claims that the separate system produced death or insanity weren’t arguments for allowing ordinary communication among prisoners. Producing death or insanity were arguments for shifting to the silent system of suppressing prisoners’ communication. For example, prison officials in New Jersey and Rhode Island early in the 1840s argued that their prisons, operated under the separate system, were hurting prisoners and causing some to go insane. Rhode Island switched to the silent system about 1844, and New Jersey switched to the silent system between 1846 and 1849.^ In retrospect, this shift appears relatively insignificant and may have been motivated by prison over-crowding.

U.S. prisons operating under both the silent and separate systems of suppressing prisoners’ communication had prisoner death rates more than double that of the civilian population. In U.S state prisons from 1840 to 1843, the average (population weighted) death rate was about 2.7% of prisoners per year. In the U.S. in 1850, about 1.2% of males ages 20-49 (the most typical ages for prisoners) died per year. Differences in death rates between individual prisons, between black and white prisoners, and between male and female prisoners were much greater than death-rate differences between the silent and separate systems. Nonetheless, those differences attracted little public attention.

Deliberative competition between the silent and separate systems implicitly supported suppressing prisoners’ communication. In 1845, one participant in the public arguments observed:

What we desire to have borne in mind by the reader is, that the groundwork of amelioration has constantly been urged by all parties to be the prevention of communication amongst prisoners. Other things being equal, the extent to which this is secured in any penitentiary would be a fair test of the degree of perfection which that institution had attained^

About this time, Johann Ludwig Tellkampf, a German scholar and professor at Columbia University, read to the Prison Association of New York a scholarly analysis of the difference between the separate and silent systems.^ Proponents of the separate system sharply criticized his work:

He thinks a hundred persons, occupying the same apartment, but maintaining strict silence, are as truly separate, the one from the other, as if each individual occupied an entirely distinct and separate apartment. The Philadelphia system works “by means of bodily separation in partitioned cells,” and the “Auburn system” by enforcing silence during the day and separation during the night;” … so it seems that, by a ruse of the Professor, our system has lost its distinctive name and feature, and henceforth, the separate system which has always been silent, is to be identified with the silent system, which has never been separate! … the Auburn discipline cannot, by any possibility, prevent intelligible intercourse by signs. The plain truth on this point is, that the Pennsylvania system, be separating the convicts ENTIRELY, utterly precludes the opportunity of mutual corruption. The Auburn system, by silencing them when at work, and separating them at night, PARTIALLY prevents corruption in some of its worst forms, and certainly makes a great advance on the former condition of our prisons. …

If would be, indeed, an inexplicable phenomenon, if two systems of prison discipline, so diverse in principle and administration, as those adopted at Auburn and Philadelphia, should produce any thing like the same amount of reformation.^

With one sentence and a footnote, a proponent of the separate system condemned the widespread practice of exhibiting prisoners to the public for a spectator admission fee.^ Most persons arguing about the separate and silent systems did not mention prisoners’ communication with family and friends not imprisoned. Vociferous, decades-long public debates about how best to suppress communication among prisoners also largely excluded serious consideration of whether such suppression actually promoted reformation.

The extensive, antagonistic, and inconclusive deliberation about the Auburn and Pennsylvania systems eventually attracted other interests. In 1850, a knowledgeable member of the Prison Association of New York’s Prison Discipline Committee noted:

The experiments which the two prominent systems of Prison Discipline have been undergoing for the last twenty years, have not as yet resulted in any definite and very decided conclusions in favor of either. …the confidence of either party in the superiority of their system, seems not on the whole to be a whit abated. …In fact, the contest which has been so long waged between these opposing systems, seems to draw no nearer to a conclusion than it did some years since.^

Part of the deliberative problem was to disentangle effects of the different disciplinary regimes from other differences, such as different prisoner populations. The Prison Association member advocated further research to advance deliberation:

There seems, indeed, to be a fundamental difficulty in the way, which can only be satisfactorily removed by combining the two under one administration. Such a measure would afford us the opportunity of testing the comparative merits of each system under the same latitude, and as nearly as possible under the similar circumstances.^

The means for a such a test was constructing a new prison. The member stood ready with detailed plans: “working plans can be procured by those wishing to build, showing in detail the arrangement and construction of the building by addressing…”^ Supplying these “working plans” probably was related to personal, material interests.

Prison officials sought middle ground and additional facilities while making pragmatic decisions. In 1866, they generally favored supplementing the Auburn (congregate) system with solitary cells like those in the Pennsylvania (separate) system:

The theory of the congregate system of imprisonment is a rigid prohibition of inter-communication between the prisoners…. The opinion was very generally expressed to us by prison officials that it is, in all cases, desirable to supplement the congregate system with a number of solitary cells, sufficiently large, well-lighted, and well-aired to serve for workshops as well as sleeping rooms.^

By 1866, Eastern State Penitentiary was confining more than one prisoner per cell. In 1869, Pennsylvania passed a law allowing congregate work in its state prisons. Officials associated with the Eastern State Penitentiary began to refer to their system as “the individual treatment system” rather than “separate method of confinement with labor and moral instruction.”^ While they continued to proclaim the special merits of the Pennsylvania System up until the early 1890s, in practice they accommodated larger prison populations and prisoner work that offered a greater pecuniary return.

British Deliberation on Suppressing Prisoners’ Communication

face of a prisoner

British authorities strongly supported suppressing prisoners’ communication. British official William Crawford visited penitentiaries in the U.S. in the early 1830s. In his 1835 report to the British government, Crawford urged that prisoners be confined separately and not be allowed to communicate with each other. For prisoners convicted of an offense, Crawford also suggested, “All letters, as well as visits and messages from friends, should be strictly prohibited, under a penalty.”^ Later that year, the House of Lords’ Select Committee on Gaols and Houses of Corrections heard testimony from judicial and prison officials. The witnesses generally endorsed suppressing communication among prisoners by keeping prisoners separate and silent. Under leading questions from the Select Committee, witnesses agreed that prisoners’ communication with family and friends “take up the Time of the Officers of the Prison,” “interfere very much with the Discipline of the Prison,” and “unhinge the Prisoner’s Mind.” A judicial official described family and friends visiting prisoners as highly injurious:

it completely neutralizes the Instructions of a good Chaplain; it takes away from the necessary Severity that was intended by the Imprisonment and by the Sentence, and is a constant Irritation.^

The Select Committee’s resolutions included:

  • That entire Separation, except during the Hours of Labour and of Religious Worship and Instruction, is absolutely necessary for preventing Contamination, and for securing a proper system of Prison Discipline.
  • That Silence be enforced, so as to prevent all Communication between Prisoners both before and after Trial.
  • That convicted Prisoners be not permitted to receive Visits or Letters from their Friends during the first Six Months of their Imprisonment, unless under peculiar and pressing Circumstances.^

In suggesting restricting prisoners’ communication with family and friends, the Select Committee remarked:

It is obvious that nothing could more tend to lighten the Weight of Imprisonment, as well as to unsettle the Minds of Prisoners, and thereby to diminish the Efficacy of Punishment, than frequent Visits from Friends, and frequent Communication by Letter.^

The phrase “it is obvious” often covers for lack of analysis. Contemporary debate, as well as subsequent experience, raised serious questions about effects on prisoners of depriving them of communication.

Officials associated with the Millbank Penitentiary argued in favor of prisoners’ communication with family and friends. Employing cost-benefit analysis with attention to deterrence incentives, the Chaplain of the Millbank Penitentiary strongly advocated allowing prisoners’ to communicate with family and friends:

As this Communication with their Friends and the World is no Doubt a considerable Solace both to the Prisoners and to their Friends, I admit that it takes away somewhat from the Rigor of the Imprisonment, and its Tendency to deter from Crime, yet the Advantages gained are, in my Opinion, so much greater than the Injury resulting from it, that I must strongly advocate the Continuance of this Indulgence. …Cut away the last Tie which connects the Convict with his family, and you remove One of the strongest Inducements to Reformation. And many of the prisoners have respectable Connexions, with whom it is most important they should be reconciled, and ultimately be reunited. I have frequently seen the greatest Advantage resulting from this Indulgence: offended Relations have been reconciled; an Interest with valuable Friends has been kept up; a Home and Employment, previous to Discharge from this Institution, have been provided. One Part of the Penitentiary System, the Reformation of the Offender, has thus been materially aided, without much Interference with the other, the deterring from Crime.^

The Governor of the Millbank Penitentiary supported the Chaplain’s position. The Governor emphasized to the Select Committee the importance of a prisoners’ communication with family and friends in securing employment for the prisoner upon discharge. He also asserted that a prisoner’s links with his wife and children should not be completely severed. By limiting the proposed ban on convicted prisoners’ communication with family and friends to the first six months of imprisonment, the Select Committee may have implicitly acknowledged some concern.

Transnational Consensus Supported Suppressing Prisoners’ Communication

face of a prisoner

By 1840, suppressing prisoners’ communication was a victorious idea within vigorous, transnational deliberation about punishment and prisons. The Eastern State Penitentiary became a leading exemplar of what was usually called the Pennsylvania system or separate system. The Auburn State Prison became the leading exemplar of what was usually called the Auburn system or the congregate system. Influential and highly respected persons, both in official and unofficial capacities, traveled from near and far to visit these prisons. Many of these eminent visitors wrote influential treatises that praised the Eastern State Penitentiary and extensively discussed means and consequences of suppressing prisoners’ communication. Other authorities advocated the Auburn System, or variants of it. The question for all was not whether to suppress prisoners’ communication, but the best way to do it.

Early reports of the British prison inspectors display this organization of discussion. The British prison inspectors’ second and third reports (1837 and 1838) contain lengthy sections organized as arguments for the Separate System (the Pennsylvania System) compared to the Silent System (the Auburn System). The Third Report marshals the views of twenty-one authorities in favor of the Separate System, including authorities in Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Norway, and Poland.^

The first International Penitentiary Congress in 1846 provided a transnational forum for discussing prison reform. The Congress was held in Frankfort-am-Main, Germany. Edouard Ducpétiaux, director of prisons in Belgium, and Whitworth Russell, inspector-general of prisons in Britain, organized it. They described their motivation for organizing the Congress:

Why is the progress of prison reform so slow? Why such diversity of systems? Certainly, greater unity of views is desirable, and, if arrived at, might secure a better success. ^

This motivation indicates concern about putting knowledge into practice and perhaps also hints at some trans-Atlantic policy rivalry. Among the seventy-five delegates who attended International Penitentiary Congress, most were senior European officials and European scholars. Dr. Karl Joseph Anton Mittermaier, distinguished professor of law at the University of Heidelberg, was elected president of the Congress.^ The only representative from the U.S. was Rev. Louis Dwight, the secretary of the Boston Prison Discipline Society and a zealous exponent of the Auburn system.

Discussion at the International Penitentiary Congress of 1846 mainly concerned suppressing communication among prisoners. Seven out of the nineteen questions proposed for the Congress specifically referred to the Auburn system or the Pennsylvania system. Seventeen concerned some aspects or consequences of suppressing communication among prisoners.^ The Congress endorsed “separate confinement.” Separate confinement, as defined in the Congress’s resolutions, suppressed communication and association among prisoners but provided prisoners with labor, exercise, instruction, and visits from persons in various official positions. Delegates unanimously endorsed separate confinement for prisoners awaiting trail and for short-time imprisonment. Three-fourths of the delegates supported separate confinement for “longer terms.”^

By organizing deliberation around the respective merits of systems for suppressing prisoners’ communication, the international penal congresses probably help to create implicit consensus that suppressing prisoners’ communication was a worthy goal. About 1869, Scalia, an eminent Italian justice official, noted:

For the last fifty years, the efficiency of the different penitentiary systems has been carefully debated, but that question has not yet made much progress; and, at present, as was the case a long time ago, the champions of different schools are ranged in the field of abstractions, to go over the same arguments, and to allege, on both sides, the same facts and arguments.^

Scalia argued for ongoing, systematic, standardized fact collection and scientific analysis of consequences. What went on in international congresses, he argued, was a much different sort of discourse:

Generally speaking, the congresses were mere academies, where any one went with the stock of goods he wanted to dispose of, and left with the same convictions which he entertained before those conventions.^

Such deliberative exercises can have consequences. A likely consequence is strengthening the assumptions that organized the formal deliberation.

masked prisoners silently walking together
Prisoners wearing face-obscuring masks walk by holding a rope under the silent system in Pentonville Prison, London, in the mid-19th century.

Prison construction and administration around the world in the middle of the nineteenth century indicates widespread consensus that prisoners’ communication should be suppressed. In Warsaw, Poland, construction began on a prison with 380 separate cells about 1831 and was completed in 1835.^ In 1839, a prison in Mecklenburg, Germany, began confining prisoners in isolation for one-year terms. By 1869, the ordinary form of imprisonment in Germany was described as solitary confinement, limited by statute in 1871 to no more than three years.^ Systematic suppression of prisoners’ communication was introduced in the Belgian prison system in 1835. In subsequent years suppression of prisoners’ communication was extended to numerous prisons in Belgium. These prisons included separate exercise spaces for prisoners and the uses of masks and separate stalls in chapel services.^ A prison that strictly suppressed prisoners’ communication began operation in Pentonville, England, in 1842. Known as the Model Prison, it also attracted many important visitors and was highly influential world-wide.^ From 1835 to 1850, prisons in North and South America, Europe (including Russia), India, Egypt, Australia and New Zealand adopted new designs and new rules intended to suppress prisoners’ communication.

Through the beginning of the twentieth century, International Penitentiary Congresses continued to endorse suppressing prisoners’ communication. This consensus endured in conjunction with the formalities of empiricism:

The International Prison Congress of 1900 discussed the results of the experiments, especially in Belgium, and reached the conclusion that the method {separate system} must be regarded with favor; that it has met the expectations of the promoters in diminishing or checking recidivism and general criminality, and that even when prolonged during ten years and more of confinement, there are no more unfavorable effects upon physical and mental health than occur under other methods, provided that those already seriously defective are removed.^

Estimating treatment effects is quite difficult, even for the separate system’s suppression of prisoners’ communication. Growth in prison populations, fiscal constraints, administrative practicality, and increased sensitivity to human rights almost surely were more important to undermining the international consensus on suppressing prisoners’ communication than was empirical evaluation of its effects on prisoners.