Carcere disciplinare moderno e immaginario collettivo: il giornalismo d’inchiesta di Henry Mayhew nella Londra vittoriana

Abstract

The advent of the modern disciplinary prison has made the execution of the punishment an experience not directly known from the generality of the associates as it did for the public penalties of societies under the Old Regime. The carceral imaginery has replaced the direct vision of the execution of punishment. Starting from this assumption, the essay analyzes the texts, and in particular the iconic production, of the illustrated volume “The Criminal Prisons of London and Scenes of Prison Life” published in 1862 by Henry Mayhew, writer and journalist who described with a sociological research the new reality of city disciplinary prisons to the public of the Victorian London. This analysis allows to appreciate the novelties of the modern carceral imaginery compared to the ancient way of conceiving the prison as a tool to force debtors to fulfill their obligations or to dispose of the body of the defendants during the inquisitorial processes or as a place of relegation.