Sex in Prison by Joseph F. Fishman

A rather fascinating early work on conditions for prisoners in US carcerial institutions, Fishman pioneered what was referred to as “Deprivation Theory”, citing lack of access to heterosexual relationships as a major cause of unrest and friction amongst inmates, he was an early suggester of conjugal visits, and a reduction in overcrowding: “Why is there such a wall of silence encircling the subject of Sex in Prison? We are living in a frank and realistic age, yet the subject of sex in prison – so provocative, so vital, so timely in view of the recent epidemic of prison riots – is shrouded in dread silence.” Fishman’s researches, despite encompassing a number of theories that we know today definitively contribute to unrest and violence amongst prison populations, weren’t favourably received until the 1960’s when a new generation of reformers took sections of his research and advanced them into a more modern understanding of what happens to incarcerated peoples, and why the concept of “punishment” is essentially useless without a conceptual pathway towards rehabilitation and a time “after punishment.”