Maconochie's Gentlemen: The Story of Norfolk Island and the Roots of Modern Prison Reform / Edition 1

by Norval Morris

Overview

In 1840, Alexander Maconochie, a privileged retired naval captain, became at his own request superintendent of two thousand twice-convicted prisoners on Norfolk Island, a thousand miles off the coast of Australia. In four years, Maconochie transformed what was one of the most brutal convict settlements in history into a controlled, stable, and productive environment that achieved such success that upon release his prisoners came to be called "Maconochie's Gentlemen".
Here Norval Morris, one of our most renowned criminologists, offers a highly inventive and engaging account of this early pioneer in penal reform, enhancing Maconochie's life story with a trenchant policy twist. Maconochie's life and efforts on Norfolk Island, Morris shows, provide a model with profound relevance to the running of correctional institutions today. Using a unique combination of fictionalized history and critical commentary, Morris gives this work a powerful policy impact lacking in most standard academic accounts.
In an era of "mass incarceration" that rivals that of the settlement of Australia, Morris injects the question of humane treatment back into the debate over prison reform. Maconochie and his "Marks system" played an influential role in the development of prisons; but for the last thirty years prison reform has been dominated by punitive and retributive sentiments, the conventional wisdom holding that we need 'supermax' prisons to control the 'worst of the worst' in solitary and harsh conditions. Norval Morris argues to the contrary, holding up the example of Alexander Maconochie as a clear-cut alternative to the "living hell" of prison systems today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780195169126
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	09/11/2003
Series:	Studies in Crime and Public Policy
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	8.36(w) x 5.50(h) x 0.74(d)
Lexile:	1310L (what's this?)

About the Author

Norval Morris is Julius Kreeger Professor of Law and Criminology at the University of Chicago. He is the editor of The Oxford History of the Prison and the author of The Brothel Boy and Other Parables of the Law. In 2000, he received both the American Society of Criminology's Edwin E. Sutherland Award and the National Council of Crime and Delinquency's Donald Cressey Award.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Author's Note	ix
About the Author	xiii
Maps	xiv
Part 1 Norfolk Island, 1840-1844	1
Part 2 Maconochie and Norfolk Island after 1844	161
Part 3 Why Do Prison Conditions Matter?	171
Part 4 Contemporary Lessons from Maconochie's Experiment	177
Fixed or Indeterminate Sentences and "Good Time"	178
Graduated Release Procedures and Aftercare	195
"The Worst of the Worst"	197
Punishment and the Mentally Ill	203
Deterrence, Rehabilitation, and Prison Conditions	208

Editorial Reviews

In this unique narrative of 19th-century penal reform, Morris, a law professor at the University of Chicago and editor of The Oxford History of the Prison, relates penal history to contemporary prison controversies. Morris gleans trenchant lessons from the work of Royal Navy Capt. Alexander Maconochie, superintendent of Norfolk Island, an Australian coastal settlement that in 1840 was a prison for the "worst of the worst." Maconochie, a man of unbending compassion, tested reform theories, combining scientific measurement of each prisoner's progress with increased privileges to elicit good behavior. All available accounts indicate that Maconochie transformed a hellish prison into a safe, well-run environment. Morris engagingly recounts Maconochie's four-year administration via four fictionalized voices: those of Maconochie himself, two better-adjusted prisoners (the prison librarian and a musician who formed an orchestra) and Maconochie's daughter, who became smitten with the musician-prisoner. Morris wonders whether Maconochie's success may have been due less to the marks system than to his honest communications with the prisoners; still, his system of privileges-for-conformity paid great dividends. While Maconochie's tenure allowed civil relations between prisoners and their soldier-keepers, his successors reverted to policies of gratuitous cruelty, resulting in deadly riots, shortly before the prison was closed. Unfortunately, Morris's deft re-creations of his principal characters' likely recollections overshadow three brief essays relating Maconochie's experiment to the perpetual penological clash between rehabilitation and punishment, a crucial component of the book given thepro-punishment camp's current successes. This lucid, novel (and novelistic) approach to a nearly forgotten chapter in penology deserves attention. 3 halftones and 3 maps. (Nov.) Forecasts: Scholars, prison activists and open-minded law enforcement professionals will appreciate this unusual book. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

This slim volume is a partly fictionalized account of a unique experiment in prison reform. In 1840, Alexander Maconochie, a retired British naval captain, was elected to become superintendent of Norfolk Island, a prison colony off the coast of Australia. Using humane methods and a "mark system" that allowed prisoners to shorten their sentences by good behavior, Maconochie ameliorated the brutal conditions on the island and transformed many of the men into "gentlemen." Sadly, the British authorities did not approve of his methods and replaced him in 1844. Law professor Morris (The Oxford History of Prisons) uses diaries ostensibly written by Maconochie and his family to recount what went on during his four years on Norfolk. The most poignant entries are by Maconochie's daughter Mary Ann, whose love for a convict forms a charming subplot. The book concludes with "Contemporary Lessons from Maconochie's Experiment" in which Morris discusses the need for modern prison reform as an alternative to the "supermax prisons" now widely used in this country. If Maconochie's methods worked under such extreme conditions, wouldn't they work today in our supposedly enlightened times? Highly recommended for crime collections in public and academic libraries. Frances Sandiford, Green Haven Correctional Facility Lib., Stormville, NY Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In a volume with a highly misleading, unsuitable title, a criminologist fictionalizes the experiences of Alexander Maconochie, the crusading superintendent of the prison on Norfolk Island in the early 1840s. Morris (ed., The Oxford History of the Prison, not reviewed) had a terrific tale to tell-the story of a man who believed that humanizing the conditions of prisons would improve the lives of the men who would ultimately return to society. He believed his theories so fervently that he convinced the authorities to allow an experiment on Norfolk Island (1,000 miles east of Australia) where resided 2,000 of the most intractable convicts. And in 1840-with his wife and six children-he arrived at the island and proceeded to implement his ideas. Within four years, he had profoundly transformed the place-instituting what he called his "Marks System," by which convicts earned points to reduce the length of their sentences. Convicts worked farms, ran a library, organized a band, performed a scene from Richard II, and generally confirmed Maconochie's faith in them. But instead of writing biography or history, Morris decided to write a . . . well, novel. The first 159 pages contain a dreadful fictionalized version of Maconochie's tenure, told in silly, ill-written monologues by Maconochie, his nubile daughter Minnie (who falls in love with her convict piano teacher), and two fictitious prisoners (one is the librarian, the other the pianist). Maconochie tells us about one of his nocturnal emissions; we hear Minnie complain, "It was just so monstrously unfair"; the librarian tells the pianist: "Quit thinking with your penis and realise what a narrow ledge we walk on." Following this fecklessfiction are brief accounts of what happened to Maconochie and Norfolk Island and then two mildly interesting (and awkwardly written) essays on prison conditions and on lessons we can learn from Maconochie. With neither index nor bibliography, the volume is useless for the scholarly or the curious. An important story that deserves far better treatment. (3 halftones, 3 maps)

Kirkus Reviews

"If Maconochie's methods worked under such extreme conditions, wouldn't they work today in our supposedly enlightened times? Highly recommended for crime collections in public and academic libraries."—Library Journal (starred review)

"Captain Maconochie's Gentlemen displays Norval Morris's large gifts as a fine narrative writer and a pre-eminent social scientist. This is a book that fits Aristotle's directive that fine art should enlighten and entertain. It is, in the first instance, an illuminating story, told through the eyes of Captain Maconochie and the family and colleagues he brought with him to Norfolk Island in 1840, of Western society's first efforts at penal rehabilitation. The fiction is followed by incisive reflections by Morris in his role as one of America's leading criminologists, relating Maconochie's experiment to the circumstances today. The book is engrossing in both modes and is thoughtful, moving, and revealing at all points. My hat is off to Norval Morris."—Scott F. Turow

From the Publisher