American penitentiary systems at the beginning of the 19th century through the eyes of European intellectuals

Abstract

The article shows the results of the research of French intellectuals Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont, conducted in the American penitentiaries of the Pennsylvania and Auburn system at the beginning of the 19th century. The following article, through the analysis of the prison report of Tocqueville and Beaumont "On the Penitentiary system in the United States and its application in France..." answers the questions: How the French thinkers evaluated the American penitentiary solutions? Why did these solutions catch the attention of Europeans? What defects and advantages of these systems have been noticed? The work will also present views on the punishment of Tocqueville and Beaumont, along with their sociological, criminological and penological insights. The controversy of the topic will be illustrated by the polemics of Francis Lieber (translator of the report into English) with the authors of the report. The following work uses the source text analysis method, along with the analysis of the available literature on the subject.