Brockway, Zebulon Reed (1827–1920)

Penologist and prison reformer Zebulon Reed Brockway ushered in a new age of social control in America, one ostensibly based on enlightened and rational scientific principles. He is perhaps best known for his criticism of determinate sentencing and his advocacy of its replacement: the indeterminate sentence.

In contrast to the determinate sentence, the principle of indeterminacy permits prisoners to complete their rehabilitation in the community if experts judge them sufficiently reformed. Brockway believed the determinate sentence was an “active cause of crime” because prisoners who were not yet rehabilitated could be released. Indeed, there was no incentive to reform. He felt the indeterminate sentence was a better alternative because it gave correctional authorities several concrete tools with which to reach the rehabilitative ideal. He thought it replaced the “law of force” with the “law of love,” instilling in prisoners “confidence,” “courage,” and “moral excellence,” which Brockway identified as “the very essence of virtue.” Because the prisoner had to earn the right of release by obeying the rules of the institution, he believed indeterminate sentences made self-interest work to the advantage of prison authorities by enhancing discipline. They also permitted the examination of inmates by panels of experts, thus allowing prison authorities to time the release of reformed persons into society and to monitor them in the community.

Born in Lyme, Connecticut, in 1827, Brockway spent his life in the service of repressive social control institutions. He began his career as a guard at the Connecticut State Prison at Wethersheld in 1848. By 1861, after positions in numerous prisons, he had scaled the ladder of the correctional hierarchy to the powerful position of superintendent of the House of Corrections in Detroit. It was at this post that he first tried his hand at reform, participating in the construction of an indeterminate sentencing law that was aimed at first-time offenders. Although Michigan courts struck down the legislation, Detroit foreshadowed things to come.

During the 1870s, Brockway worked closely with several reformers, including Enoch Wines, who drafted the Declaration of Principles delivered at the National Congress of Penitentiary and Reformatory Discipline in Cincinnati in 1870. Brockway's major contribution at the congress was his paper “The Ideal of a True Prison for a State,” wherein he argued that penitentiaries properly have two functions: (1) the protection of society by the prevention of crime, and (2) the reformation of criminals. He argued against relying on force and fear as tools of control. Well-run institutions, for him, did not need to intimidate or coerce inmates. Rather than punishment to achieve compliance, he advocated systems of rewards. The role of corrections was to provide education and training and to teach inmates self-respect and self-control. Brockway advocated separate facilities for women, which he argued should be under the management of women. He advocated a medical model whereby penitentiaries were to be transformed into reformatories focused on classification, rehabilitation, and prevention; in other words, society would treat the criminal, not the crime.