Seminary of Virtue: The Ideology and Practice of Inmate Reform at Eastern State Penitentiary, 1829-1971 - Softcover

"Paul Kahan has an amazingly balanced feel for the history, the politics, the sociology and the frustration of incarceration in a democratic society. All of these aspects of the prison experience come together in `Seminary of Virtue' to demonstrate its good, its bad and its ugliness." (Richard H. Fulmer, Professor Emeritus of Social Work, Millersville University and Former Social Worker, Eastern State Penitentiary) "Paul Kahan has done it again - produced a meticulously researched yet very readable book about Eastern State Penitentiary. In his examination of education at the penitentiary, Kahan uncovers new evidence about life at Eastern State Penitentiary that will intrigue both casual and long-time Eastern State Penitentiary fans." (Andrea Reidell, Former Education Director, Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site, Inc.) "Paul Kahan relies on an extraordinary range of sources to cover the often-neglected field of prison education and its historical antecedents." (Norman B. Johnston, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Arcadia University, Board Member Emeritus, Pennsylvania Prison Society, and Secretary, Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site, Inc. Board of Directors)

Seminary of Virtue explores the history of penal education programs, demonstrating that America's prisons have historically been educational (as well as punitive) institutions. This volume argues that Eastern State Penitentiary's extensive and aggressive educational program reflected a general American belief that correctional institutions should educate inmates as a way of reducing recidivism and thereby "reforming" them. No mere case study, Seminary of Virtue demonstrates that for the last two hundred years penologists have believed that educational programming was one of the keys to lowering recidivism and "reforming" inmates. Seminary of Virtue also reveals the historical amnesia that hindered American penal reform over the same time period as each succeeding generation believed that their particular penal reforms were revolutionary.