The attempt to create «Eden Prison»: the work of Thomas Eddy as the Director of the first state penitentiary of New-York at the turn of XVIII - XIX centuries

The article summarizes materials on the activities of Thomas Eddy - the American entrepreneur, philanthropist and the first Director of the first state prison of New York. The personality of Thomas Eddy is unknown to the Russian researcher. The article is based on the study of English-language sources, the author focuses on the detailed study of Eddy's humanistic and religious views, which he tried to bring in American prison reforms. There is a clear connection between Eddy's Quaker faith and upbringing and his program of correctional criminal punishment. Having headed the Commission on preparation for penal reform in the state of New York, Eddie has developed a package of bills that set new standards in prison: the death penalty as a form of criminal punishment for everything but murder and treason was restricted. Corporal punishments, such as pillory, whipping and branding, were abolished. Criminals faced imprisonment, which could be accompanied by "hard labor or solitary confinement, or both. In the implementation of its penal ideas and practices Thomas Eddy turned to the expertise and practical assistance of recognized leaders and pioneers of the American prison reform - The Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of the Public Prisons. The ideologists of that society formulated the principles of correctional imprisonment, based on the system of solitary confinement and the treatment of sources of religious content. Thomas Eddy borrows conceptual idea of corrective punishment, however, argues against Philadelphia's colleagues on the issue of solitary confinement. The reformer wished to make a prison unit in which it could have a beneficial effect on the mental and moral nature of the prisoner. Designing the first state correctional prison of New York «the Newgate», Eddy put the task of creating an «enclosed garden» - a special way of the organized places of detention, which, according to his plan, would have been neutralized by harmful effects of a certain social environment on the moral propensities of the offender and leads to his moral rebirth by labor and religious education. The article summarizes some results of the first five years of operation of Newgate: it shows how utopian Eddy's beliefs were, it deals with the main problems faced by the reformer and humanist, while building his «Eden Prison». In conclusion, the author analyzes the humanistic views of T. Eddy in the assessment of a state's right to punish and execute justice. Beliefs and principles of T. Eddy anticipated the modern understanding of the social purposes of criminal punishment.

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