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41 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 311 (1950-1951)
Observations on Imprisonment as a Source of Criminality

handle is hein.journals/jclc41 and id is 323 raw text is: OBSERVATIONS ON IMPRISONMENT AS A SOURCE OF CRIMINALITY Donald Clemmer The following is one of several contributions from the United States to the pro- gram of the World Congress of Criminology in Paris, September 10 to 18, 1950. The author is Director of the Department of Corrections of the District of Colum- bia. During 1932 to 1941 he was Senior Sociologist in the Illinois Division of Crim- inology. He was Personnel Director for the Republic Drill and Tool Co. from 1941 to 1944, and Associate Warden of the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta from that time until he assumed his present office.-EDITOR. The rise of humanitarianism during the last two centuries has had its influence on penal practices in noticeable ways. Earlier societies employed corporal punishment strictly as personal retribution and with deterrence as only a vague and secondary purpose.' The development of imprisonment as a form of penalty for violation of laws is, in the historical sense, rather new. As humanitarianism has in minute and almost indescribable ways edged slowly into all human relations, so also has it influenced penal programs. The doctrine of humanitarianism has, for example, added a new concept to penal practice within fairly recent times-the concept of rehabilitation. This doctrine or trend has also recognized the youthful offender as a juvenile, and it has been instrumental through modification of criminal codes, in reducing the single and absolute responsibility towards the offender. There have been many exceptions according to locality, and the humanitarian influ- ence has been jagged in its slow, upward climb. It is important to recall the historical newness of imprisonment as a penal method, and it is especially important to recognize that rehabilita- tion as a serious purpose has only a few decades of experience behind it. These views are needed for perspective as we lay bare in a descriptive way the manner in which American prisons contribute in some degree to the criminality of those they hold. No scientific evidence exists to show in what precise manner or to what degree the influences of the prison culture moulds the lives of those subjected to its culture. There can only be observations and rather crude deductions from those observations. Reference is indicated here, of course, to the well-understood condition that the tools of research for understanding in a scientific way how a human being comes to be exactly what he is, are limited. Human nature is too complicated a phenomena to disect and analyze, and locate with certainty the precise set of causes of any particular human reaction. There are too many and 1. THORSTEN SELLIN, The Historical Background of Our Prisons. 157 Annals, 1931. 311

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