Book Review: Forgotten Reformer: Robert McClaughry and Criminal Justice Reform in Nineteenth-Century America

Why do we in the United States continue to perpetuate an incarceration mentality in a prison system that most agree is largely dysfunctional despite over two centuries of attempted reforms?

One answer: Too often, we lack a sense of the historical roots and sociopolitical antecedents that spawned the current carceral crisis. A second answer: The carceral crisis exists because reform is futile. The vision and ideals of reformers of the past are dead. Progress and reform may be a “forlorn hope.”

In Forgotten Reformer, Morn develops the first answer by filling in some of the historical gaps in our knowledge, using a biography of Robert McClaughry, a seemingly obscure late 19th- and early 20th-century criminal justice practitioner and reformer. Morn provides a meticulously researched, well-written, and well-argued historical analysis in which the material is organized around the central character, who becomes the driving force of a much broader historical narrative of corrections and law enforcement in the United States. Morn excels in the intended historical narrative. Unfortunately, he fails to support his rather bleak judgment that reform is dead with neither his commentary nor with evidence. Fortunately, the historical exposition more than compensates for the reformist fatalism.

Although perhaps not his intent, the volume illustrates the dialectical tensions underlying all social change, and it does so in an easy-flowing style accessible both to nonspecialist readers and advanced scholars.

Morn organizes his material around a preface, an introduction, and 35 sections divided into six main themes in a chronological path corresponding to McClaughry’s life. However, his life—while central to the book—serves primarily as the vehicle from which we tour the diverse historical landscape. With Morn as our guide, the reader surveys a broad area of mostly Midwest territory (Illinois, Kansas, Pennsylvania) and sees the nuances of ideology, politics, and people unfold in the processes of reform and opposition to it.

Morn’s preface provides the central organizing them for the volume, which:

 . . . tells the story of a justice system of a bygone era that resonates to this day. Much of the hullabaloo directed at probation, parole, and prison regimes [today] is the product of well-intentioned reforms in the nineteenth century. (p. ix)

The remainder of the volume focuses on illustrating the complex human and social elements that drove attempts at reform while feeding its failures. McClaughry’s life provides the lens that makes this visible. In a few short paragraphs, Morn’s introduction sets the conceptual context around which most of the subsequent data is organized: regionalism, religion, philosophy (or more accurately ideology), urbanization, and bureaucracy. The bulk of the book’s narrative occurs in, but is not exclusively limited to, Illinois. The Presbyterianism of Central Illinois and Monmouth College shaped McClaughry’s early vision of morality and justice. Although rising to the rank of major in the Civil War, McClaughry’s service does not appear to have been particularly distinguished. However, Morn suggests that McClaughry’s civil war experiences may have sensitized him to what he later came to see as useless corporal punishment that often seems to be punishment for punishment’s sake.

McClaughry could be considered a pioneer in what we now might call early “scientific penology.” He urged systematic classification of prisoners by grade and recommended individualized treatment of prisoners. As a warden in the early Joliet prison, he introduced the Bertillon system of classification based on photography and precise body measurement, which had become popular in Europe. Although the system never caught on in the United States, he remained a lifelong advocate. It was perhaps his willingness to explore new technologies, implement reforms when possible, and investigate new ways to improve prisons, that led to McClaughry’s attempts to emulate Zebulon Brockway, considered the “father of U.S. prison reform,” when he later became superintendent of the State Industrial Reformatory for juvenile offenders in Pennsylvania. McClaughry modeled the reformatory on Elmira’s principles of labor, education, and religion, but his tenure in Pennsylvania was short-lived.

McClaughry’s later career included 2 years as chief of the Chicago Police Department, where he found his attempts to reform a corrupt department thwarted by internal departmental politics and staff hostilities, external political squabbles between city and state politicians, and cultural indifference to—if not support for—public order crimes such as prostitution, gambling, and saloons. He resigned after 2 years, and returned to prison administration, serving in administrative positions at Illinois’ Pontiac Reformatory and Joliet Prison, followed by nearly 15 years as warden at Leavenworth in the first decade of the 20th century. During this time, he became president of the National Prison Association (the current American Correctional Association), and—along with other reformers and progressive politicians—continued to push for his vision of correctional reform. Although Morn argues that McClaughry was not an idealist, McClaughry was nonetheless part of a strong core of prison reformers spanning from the late 18th century to the present day.

Returning to the second question posed above: Why do attempts at prison reform appear to have been relatively unsuccessful, even today? Morn suggests an answer in his preface:

First, reform tends not to stick. The adhesive gives away, exposing persistent sores underneath. Second, reform often has unintended consequences that are corrupt and counter effective. Apparently, many reformers are nearsighted visionaries. (ix)

Despite my enthusiasm for this volume’s scholarship, I would strongly disagree with the unsupported stark pessimism seeping through the subtext. In his afterward, “Forlorn Hope,” Morn seems discouraged in concluding that, nearly a century after McClaughry left the scene, his vision—and by implication significant reforms—have become a “forlorn hope.” Space constraints prevent elaboration, but Morn’s conclusion seems to rest on two premises: First, prisons remain in dire need of reform, and second, reformers are short-sighted in their vision. Few corrections professionals would disagree with the first remise. The second premise is more contentious and ignores the trajectory of change that has occurred in the past century, especially in the past few decades. Federal court decisions, citizen’s groups, a growing ideological convergence that transcends conventional political boundaries and recognizes that a humanitarian ethos need not be inconsistent with punishment and control, are just a few of the factors that continue to contemporary reforms. The mission of the American Correctional Association and many state correctional organizations embody the reform ethos that McClaughry and many other turn-of-the-century reformers advocated. Granted, little of this transformation has emerged out of any reformist grand vision, and reform remains an often uphill struggle against many of the same obstacles McClaughry faced. However, grand visions—let alone the means to attain them—rarely share consensus. While grand visions are necessary, they are probably best attained incrementally and in constant struggle with the political fiscal, ideological, and structural obstacles we face.

My discomfort with Morn’s pessimism cannot dissuade me from judging Forgotten Reformer as one of the most interesting historical analyses of the broader social context of prisons that I have read, and it will appeal to a diverse audience. The easy writing style would make this book a valuable supplement for students. The prodigious research will appeal to researchers interested in the history of corrections, crime, and policing in the Midwest in the middle and later half of the 19th century. It also serves as a reminder that prison reform is often an uphill struggle that may or may not seem initially successful. However, despite Morn’s often Kafkaesque view that social action is futile and reform hopeless, he reminds us that struggle is as long as history and changes occur because of the legacy of reformers like McClaughry.