Pennsylvania Prison Society

Mission

The mission of the Pennsylvania Prison Society “is to advocate for a humane, just and restorative correctional system, and to promote a rational approach to criminal justice issues.” Among its stated goals are the following:

• To monitor correctional facilities within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, advocating for remedial action where unsafe or inhumane conditions exist, and to urge the reaction and maintenance of constructive institutional environments.
• To ensure development and implementation of policies that will improve prison conditions and [Page 693]programs, and to challenge corrections professionals to remain informed about innovations in the field and apply them.
• To support prisoners, their families, and those recently released in their efforts toward self-help and development, and to reduce their pain and misery through visitation, services, and intervention.
• To advocate for rational and progressive criminal justice legislation and programs, recognizing our overuse of incarceration as a failed experiment in crime control. To, therefore, substantially reduce the use of incarceration, through the implementation or more appropriate correctional settings.
• To inform, educate, and mobilize the public to promote correctional reform in Pennsylvania and to coordinate the networking and exchange of information among constituencies engaged in these efforts and similar activities involving criminal justice reform. (Pennsylvania Prison Society, 2002)

Current Projects

The Pennsylvania Prison Society is active in a number of different areas, each of which seeks to influence theories, understanding, and practices of punishment. Thus, it works to maintain the historical Eastern State Penitentiary as a museum, it publishes an influential academic journal, and it initiates numerous alternative penal practices and inmate-centered activities.

Eastern State Penitentiary

The original members of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons advocated that inmates should be held in silence and solitary confinement. Such views became incorporated into the Pennsylvania system of imprisonment that was, in turn, embodied by the Eastern State Penitentiary. Although no longer in favor of solitary confinement, the society maintains its ties with Eastern State. It is, for example, currently involved in preserving the facility (closed since 1975) and establishing a center for correctional scholarship within it. In 1980, Philadelphia paid the state of Pennsylvania $400,000 for the prison, and the facility was reopened as a museum, with much support from the society. In 1996, the society was awarded a 10-year license to further develop the facility. An average of 25,000 people visit the museum every year.

The Prison Journal and other Publications

Since 1921, the society has published the Prison Journal, which was established in 1845 as the Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy. The journal examines theory, research, policy, and practice in the areas of adult and juvenile incarceration while addressing correctional alternatives and penal sanctions. It is one of the primary scholarly journals of prison research in the world.

The society also publishes an official quarterly newsletter, Correctional Forum, and since 2002, Graterfriends, a monthly prisoner advocacy newsletter devoted to providing inmates and families current correctional and legal information and legislative updates. The society receives funding from a number of sources, including the United Way, and is made up of members from diverse backgrounds and interests.

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