NCJ Number
128679
Journal
Justice Quarterly Volume: 7 Issue: 2 Dated: (June 1990) Pages: 293-323
Date Published
1990
Length
31 pages
Annotation
The article opens with brief accounts of pre-Revolutionary Connecticut history and of the formal and informal methods used to control Loyalist behavior. This is followed by discussions of the adoption of Newgate for wartime purposes, the population served by the facility, institutional conditions, security problems, and how Newgate fit into the pattern of penal lenience established during the Revolutionary period.
Abstract
The origins of the fractionalization of Connecticut society into patriot and loyalist factions are presented followed by a case study of the use of Newgate Prison as a tool for the suppression of such deviance. Newgate Prison was the first true colonial prison for the long-term punishment of serious offenders. Although the prison was designed for conventional offenders, the war transformed the mission of the facility so that it confined common and political offenders simultaneously in a nonsegregated institutional environment. The wartime experience of the prison is described, the use of incarceration in Newgate is considered in the context of the larger strategy adopted to control Troy activity during the war, and the significance of Newgate's wartime experience is examined. 10 footnotes and 71 references