AMERICA. - LA ROCHEFOUCAULD-LIANCOURT (François-Alexandre, duc de). From the prisons of Philadelphia. Paris, Du Pont ; Philadelphia, Moreau de St-Méry, An IV de la République (1796). Booklet in-8, bradel half red morocco (modern binding).
Very rare first edition, illustrated with a fold-out table showing the number and species of prisoners.
Initiated by the Quakers, this innovative penitentiary policy, in contrast to the ferocious practice in force, is much gentler, with death sentences reserved for the most serious crimes, and paid work for convicts, thus freeing the State from the burden of their upkeep and enabling them to envisage reintegration, given as the goal of their imprisonment by a system of broad remissions of sentences (Michel Foucault, Surveiller et punir, p. 126).
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