Larry Goldsmith was of the view that prisons have been turned into places where public funds are misused in offering education to detainees. In his view, this amounts to depredating and depriving the community of its scarce resources in supporting and encouraging reformation of prisoners. He suggests that local communities ought to support education among other members of society as opposed to prisoners.
In this regard, legislators should authorize the awarding of diplomas and doctorates to individuals who show high interest in the field of science and invention as opposed to misusing funds in offering education to prisoners. Goldsmith talks about the vivid aspects of Charlestown prison during the nineteenth century.
He provides the motives and actions of Penitentiaries at the time whereby his main purpose is to reveal the actions of Charlestown correctional facility, which was inspired by Chaplain Curtis. Those who supported learning among criminals claimed that training prisoners on how read and write is a critical aspect of rehabilitation process given the fact that institutional records offer information regarding the importance literacy to reformers, as well as detainees1.
Supporters of learning in correctional institutions recommended further that inmates might be in prison, but they are scarcely inactive in their social interactions2. For instance, in the Charleston prison, records indicated certain patterns of behavior among prisoners and guards that are unique to the correctional institutions.
This made it easier to single out incarceration and actions inside the prison walls. The author provides secondary sources to display a complex background of the prison walls. In the correctional institutions, prisoners learn through reading and writing.
Bibliography
Goldsmith, Larry. “History from the inside out: Prison Life in Nineteenth-Century.” Journal of Social History 31.1 (1997):109-125.
Footnotes
1 Larry Goldsmith, “History from the inside out: Prison Life in Nineteenth-Century,” Journal of Social History 31.1 (1997):111.
2 Larry Goldsmith, “History from the inside out: Prison Life in Nineteenth-Century,” Journal of Social History 31.1 (1997):110.