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Prisons and Punishment in Texas pp 147–170Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Depicting Modern Punishment as Civilised Punishment

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology ((PSIPP))

Abstract

After touring the punishment museums of the Lone Star State, it became clear that Texan punishment stories were often narratives of modernisation, progress and improvement. The stories rarely adhered to an event-driven plot trajectory, but many of them could nevertheless be identified as having a ‘temporally organised’ internal structure. In other words, the past was juxtaposed with the present in order to show Texan penal reform. This story of reform sought to construct punishment in the present as civilised in comparison to what came before. This chapter is designed to examine what I have termed the ‘modernisation motif’ in more detail. We will consider how and where it manifests within both the Texas Prison Museum and the jail cell tours, but more importantly we will consider what this motif tells us about Texas and its relationship with punishment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Brighton, Brighton, UK

    Hannah Thurston

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  1. Hannah Thurston
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© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)

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Thurston, H. (2016). Depicting Modern Punishment as Civilised Punishment. In: Prisons and Punishment in Texas. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53308-1_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53308-1_9

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-53307-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-53308-1

  • eBook Packages: Law and CriminologyLaw and Criminology (R0)

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