State Prison Report [caption title]
[Providence: 1834]. Broadside, 15 x 10.5 inches, printed in three columns within an ornamental border. Old folds, short splits along some folds, a few small chips, moderate dust-soiling and foxing. Untrimmed. Good plus. Item #3806
A rare broadside disseminating a report from a five-man committee of the General Assembly of Rhode Island, recommending penal code reform and the establishment of a state prison in the Ocean State in 1834. The beginning of the report expounds upon the inconsistency of the various legal punishments meted out in county jails. The committee then evaluates different methods of imprisonment in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and other states, concluding as follows: "On the whole the committee are in favor and recommend to the General Assembly, the erection of a State penitentiary, on the principle of solitary confinement at labor, with instruction in labor, in morals and religion." The committee hoped this prison reform would "relieve the State from the future support of convicts, and may produce a moral reformation in those who may be subjected to its operation...." We could locate just one copy of this broadside in OCLC, at Brown.
Price: $450.00