Osborne of Sing Sing

From Christina Gates <[email protected]> Sent Thursday, Aligust 31, 2026 12:53 pm To [email protected]& Subject Re: out of print book Dear Scott: This book is now in the publ~cdomain as copyright for it was not renewed. Unfortunately, we do not have any additional copies available for order; but you are welcome to photocopy the rnater~alfor distribution. ;\ I; "$ '.j I?-=- / ,, \, .. Best wishes, Christina - Christina Gates, Advancement Coordinator & Assistant to the Director phone: 919-966-3561 ext. 223 / fax: 919-966-3829 The Ur~iversityof North Carolina Press 116 S. Boundary St. / Chapel Hill, NC 27515-2288 http://www.uncpress.unc.edu [email protected] wrote: > The Center for the Study of Correctional Education at California State University, San Bernardino is looking to obtain multiple copies (30 or so) of the following (long) out of print book: > > Tannenbaum, F. (1933). Osborne of Sing Sing. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. (could not find an ISBN) > > We understand the book is out of print. Do you currently hold the copyright? We would like to supply prison libraries with a copy of this text. Any help you can glve is appreciated. > > Best, > > Scott Rennie COPYRIGH* 1933, BY THE'UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS &HO HAS DEVOTEDA LONG AND FAITHFUL LIFE TO THE SERVICE OF HIS FELLOWS PRINTED IN THE'UNITED STATES OP AMERICA BY THE SEEMAN PRESS, .DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA ACKNOWLEDGMENTS THISBOOK grew out of a conversation I had with Thomas Mott Osborne two years before his death. I recall sitting in front of the fireplace of his large library in the city of Auburn, New York, discussing the advisability of using the many thousands of letters in his files for the purpose of describing the history of the great experiment he had initiated. I was to come to Auburn and write the book. A long trip to Mexico intervened, and when I returned it was too late to carry out the initial project-Osborne died within two weeks. I am profoundly grateful to Osborne's family for making possil;G the carrying out of his implied wish by turning over for my use the files containing the prison materials upon which the book is largely based. In addition to the prisoners' letters the files contained copies of investigations of New York State prisons, as well as copies of the minutes of the hearings of the Grand Jury that indicted Thomas Mott Osborne, and copies of the court records of his trial. As a background for the book, there were long years of intimacy with Mr. Osborne, which included a number of visits to Sing Sing, Auburn and Ports- mouth prisons at the time when his influence was at its height in those institutions, and beyond that the rare privilege of days in his home on many occasions, talking about the prison and its problems. The Social Science Research'council underwrote the project, and I want to acknowledge my indebtedness to Dr. Harold G. Moulton for interesting the Social Science Research Council in the matter. Further indebtedness is due to Dr. Luis L. Lorwin, M. H. Hedges, Austin H. McCormick, Mrs. Harrison S. Morris, [ vii ] ... Vlll ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Charles D. Osborne and Dr. George W. Kirchwey for reading the manuscript, to hir. Jurgen Kuczynski for helping,to classify the vast material in the files, to Paul Kellogg of the Szlrvey for reading and part of the manuscript, to.Edwin Larnke for reading the proof, to Mrs. Glenore Fisk Home 'for editorial help, and to the Brookings Institution for providing me with the facilities for doing the work. INTRODUCTION FRANKTANNENBAUM. THOMASMOTT OSBORNE had dourage; even his enemies admit Washington, D. C. that; he had vision; even those who laughed at him twenty June, 1933. 1 years.ago admit that now. , . Nearly a century ago Charles Dickens and others brought .out the physical harms of a prison system which had .not changed in a thousand years. This was followed by some improvements in all countries-improvements which, however, were directed primarily to actual living conditions in penal When Osborne first began his work in the State of New York, the cells, the food, the sanitation in our prisons had changed little from the status of 1850. Mr. Osborne was the . ..great pioneer in calling our attention to these physical conditions. His was a voice crying in the wilderness and it has been only in the past half dozen years that society as a whole and leaders of government have heeded the appeal. It was, however, on the basically more important phase of -the prison problem that Mr. Osborne made his greatest con- modern civilization. I like to think of him as the eal pioneer who brought out the fact that ninety men out of red who go to prison return sooner or later to our midst as members of our communities. His deep principle was wholly sound-that human beings who are apprehended and punished by the State for sins against society can, in a very large percentage of cases, be restored to society as law-abiding citizens. He was right in holding that the prisons themselves were the key to the problem. Crime prevention is another problem and so also is an adequate system of parole and super- vision after prisoners are released. It is in the prison itself, [ b'l X INTRODUCTION ' however, where the greatest opportunity lies in turning men who have sinned into men who will sin no more. It was natural and logical that Mr. Osborne's efforts should meet with opposition from those who for one reason or another were satisfied with existing conditions, and it was also natural that many perfectly well meaning people were unable to grasp the fundamentals which he advanced. Today there PREFACE are growing evidences that the seeds which he sowed are bear- ing good fruit. ' Let us remember that penology as a social THOMASMOTT OSBORNE challenged a deeply rooted prejudice science is still in its infancy and that the greatest tribute which when he set out to reform the American prison. The Amer- we can pay Mr. Osborne's memory will be to carry on the fight ican prison is tinctured with the belief that criminals are set relentlessly, and with the high idealism which he so well apart from their fellows by some deep moral difference that exemplified. degrades and perverts their very nature, that makes them FRANKLIND. ROOSEVELT. unlike other human beings, that describes them as of a lower order, more bestial, more inhuman, more perverse than men in the street, the home, the church, and the government. Only on the assumption that criminals are different could we have built and for so long maintained an institution that can only be defended as one set apart for those who are separated from ordinary men. The drab and often horror-filled prisons that were typical up to 1910,their small cells, absolute silence, their inmates with shaven heads, and striped clothing;-thei; rule of iron, the lockstep, iron chains, cages, iron balls, the dun- geon, handcuffs, whipping, aye, even the straightjacket-all still common at the time that Osborne began his campaign, could only be maintained, could only be defended, on the assumption that prisoners are unlike other men. These practices could only have persisted on the assumption that they were natural to the perverse nature of the men within the prison walls. Osborne challenged that assumption. Men in prison were men to him-ordinary men, arrested and sentenced for a crime which in the nature of things was not inconsistent with the pos- , sibilities of the mass of other people who had not come within the grip of the law. It was his belief that men in prison could be treated as other men, and that in such a treatment lay the possibilities of reconstructing their habits, redirecting -their *%X ! CAI <..,,Y', >, ?, . ., , i PREFACE xiii xii PREFACE energies, of remodeling their i'nterests, and of reshaping their dling prisoners in three different institutions-with results that activities. were revolutionary and profoundly significant. In the career of the criminal, imprisonment served chiefly But more than any method or theory, the work of Osborne as an interlude between two periods of crime. The prison pro- represents a great human adventure. He lkerally did the im- vided no new experience, no new incentives, no new attitudes, possible. In spite of all the scoffing and ridicule he did what no new stimuli. The time spent in prison was a time of incuba- no one had had the courage to do before-to take men in prison tion between one crime and another. The theory that punish- as men, to trust them, to work with them as with human beings. ment would serve as a deterrent was proven wrong in fact by His results were as astounding as was his daring. No one can the numerous careers that oscillated for a lifetime between a follow the experience and its by-products in creative human period of criminal activity and a period of imprisonment. The emotion and activity without a feeling of deepest gratitude to reason for this was that the men within the prison fed upon Osborne for vindicating- the common humanity .of men--even their past-their past criminal experiences-for their emotional in prison. The first four chapters and intellectual life during their period of confinement. The plan of the book is simple. Osborne attempted to change that basic experience of the give a picture of the American Prison as it existed in 1910.

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