Thomas Mott Osborne

American prison reformer

• Born: September 23, 1859
• Birthplace: Auburn, New York
• Died: October 20, 1926
• Place of death: Auburn, New York

Osborne’s theories of limited self-government encouraged prisoners to be responsible for their own group discipline. His plan reduced problems within the American prisons where he worked and German prisons in the 1920’s and 1930’s.

Early Life

Born into a wealthy family in western New York, Thomas Mott Osborne had the opportunity to travel widely and receive a college education at Harvard. After graduating cum laude in 1884, he worked in his father’s agricultural implement business, managing it for several years until he sold it to International Harvester in 1903. Retiring from business gave him more time to pursue his civic interests.

His first civic involvement came as a member of the Auburn, New York, school board from 1885 until 1891 and then again from 1893 to 1895. Next he served as mayor of Auburn from 1903 until 1906. By fulfilling these offices with integrity and honesty, he became a leader in upstate Democratic politics. He served in a variety of appointed positions, including one as a delegate to the national Democratic conventions.

Following his wife’s death in 1896, Osborne became interested in the George Junior Republic, a youth movement emphasizing self-government. Osborne served as a member and later as chair of its governing board. This, along with his early associations with Auburn Prison, located in his hometown, led to his interest in prison reform. In 1906 he addressed the National Prison Association, emphasizing the need for prisoners to be given the most freedom possible so that they could return to society as contributing members.

Life’s Work

Osborne’s major contribution to prison reform began in 1912 when he read Donald Lowrie’s My Life in Prison (1912). Although he had long been interested in prison reform, it was not until this point that Osborne began to devote his life to improving the condition of the incarcerated. He firmly believed that the function of prison was twofold: First, it protected society by removing the individual from its midst; second, incarceration provided the opportunity for prisoners to reform those areas of their lives that had led to their imprisonment.

Osborne, a gifted lecturer, increased public interest in prison reform. In 1913 Osborne met with the newly elected governor of New York State to propose a commission to investigate prison conditions. The governor accepted the suggestion and appointed Osborne to chair the New York State Prison Reform Commission. Osborne had a deep interest in prison reform and a sympathy for the prisoner but neither education nor experience in the area of adult corrections. In an unusual and exceptionally bold move, Osborne proposed that he investigate prison conditions from the inside by becoming a prisoner at Auburn, which served as a national model of harsh treatment.

With the consent of both the warden and the superintendent of prisons, Osborne addressed the fourteen hundred inmates at Auburn prison on Sunday, September 28, 1913, and told them his plan. He expected to be treated as one of them, wearing what they wore, sleeping where they slept, eating what they ate, and doing what they did. He realized, however, that since he could be released at any moment he could not completely share their experiences. To make the situation as realistic as possible, Osborne assumed the identity “Tom Brown.” As such, the guards treated Brown as they did any other prisoner. He dressed in a gray striped uniform, walked in the required lockstep, worked in the prison shop, and abided by the silent system.

Although he remained incarcerated for only one week, the experience reaffirmed Osborne’s belief that prisoners remained people with the same emotions, dreams, hopes, and fears as those who were free. More important, he realized that the silence and monotony of prison life did nothing to prepare the inmate to return to society. Even though the press was not particularly enthusiastic about Osborne’s week in prison, he became a national figure in prison reform.

The experience at Auburn gave Osborne the chance to introduce the basic principles of his Mutual Welfare League. A few months after his “release,” the inmates at Auburn voted to establish a league at their prison. For the first time in any American prison, the inmates had a chance to participate in their own management. As a result of a secret ballot, forty-nine prisoners were elected to a constitutional convention that established the basis for the league. Meeting without interference from prison guards or officials, they determined that an executive committee and five grievance committees would be formed to assist with the management of Auburn Prison. As time went by, the warden granted more and more power to the league, allowing it to help maintain order and discipline within the prison. It negotiated Sunday afternoon meetings for its members and oversaw the movement of men to meals and to work. When these concessions caused no disruptions, the warden agreed to allow the league to oversee order in the shops; as a result, the guards were withdrawn.

In 1914, Osborne moved to Ossining, New York, to become the warden of Ossining Correctional Facility (also known as Sing Sing). There he ended the Golden Rule Brotherhood, which was similar to the Mutual Welfare League but was introduced and managed by prison authorities rather than the inmates themselves. When he replaced it with a league, he witnessed the same improvement in prison discipline and inmate morale that took place at Auburn. Even though the buildings at Ossining were old and there had been riots shortly before Osborne took over, the situation improved dramatically. Despite the mixing of young and old criminals in overcrowded conditions, the riots ended. Assaults and fights declined, as did the incidence of drug abuse. The prisoners dealt severely with any infractions of the rules, and the prison industries became more productive. Clearly, the participation of inmates in the management of the institution proved to be worthwhile for both the inmates themselves and the prison administration.

However, Osborne soon ran into trouble. Unaccustomed to dealing with the prison bureaucracy as an employee, he freely criticized his superiors and their management. He stopped the graft that had existed at Sing Sing for decades. Furthermore, he was an upstate Democrat, and his position normally went to a local official of the dominant Republican Party. After one year in office, the local grand jury indicted him for perjury and neglect of his duties. In a politically motivated action, the grand jury accused Osborne of failing to exercise supervision over the prison, of undermining discipline, and of not acting in a manner worthy of respect and confidence.

Refusing to resign, Osborne took a six-month leave of absence and returned in July, 1916. Inmate morale continued to improve during that time as the interim warden maintained the Mutual Welfare League, proving that the creative platform on which it was built could operate with any caring, intelligent warden. The case against Osborne never went to trial. The court dismissed it because of insufficient evidence. When Osborne returned to Sing Sing, the inmates honored him with a grand demonstration. Prison officials passed laws designed to hamper the working of the Mutual Welfare League; realizing the action was directed against him, Osborne resigned as warden three months later.

On leaving Sing Sing, Osborne accepted an appointment from the secretary of the Navy to study its prison system. As with Auburn, Osborne studied the situation from the inside. He joined the Navy and deserted, thus ending up first on a prison ship and then at the main prison in Portsmouth, Virginia. Osborne concluded that the Navy’s prison system was a failure. Most of the men, incarcerated for minor violations, received a dishonorable discharge, which deprived the Navy of their services and which followed the men for the rest of their lives. He thought it would be better if the naval prison could return the men to active military duty when they completed their sentences.

The secretary of the Navy was so impressed with the report that he invited Osborne to take over the prison at Portsmouth, a radical decision given that Osborne was a civilian. In August, 1917, as a newly commissioned officer in the Naval Reserve, Osborne took charge of the prison. He held the position until March of 1920. During this time, Osborne dismissed the guards who had worked inside the compound and allowed the prisoners to establish a Mutual Welfare League. Of six thousand men held in the prison during Osborne’s three years as warden, only eight escaped. More important, he convinced the Navy to allow worthy men to return to service on completion of their sentence. As a result, some four thousand men returned to active duty. On his resignation, the secretary of the Navy commended Osborne for mending rather than breaking men.

When Osborne left Portsmouth in 1920, he ended his active involvement with individual prisons, but he continued to lecture, write, and conduct prison investigations. In 1922 he helped organize the National Society for Penal Information, designed to acquaint the public with the workings of the prison system. After his death, the organization’s name was changed to the Osborne Association as a memorial to his work.

Thomas Mott Osborne died on October 20, 1926. The next morning, the guards opened the cells at Auburn and announced that Tom Brown had died. At a funeral service held in the prison chapel on October 23, fourteen hundred of the prison’s sixteen hundred inmates filed past the casket to say a last goodbye to their greatest supporter.

Significance

Thomas Mott Osborne displayed an interest in the humanity of inmates. He believed that the best way to teach them to return to society as productive citizens rather than as criminals was to give them a chance to participate in managing their own behavior and to be accountable for their actions while in prison. He influenced both the prisoners and the authorities with whom he worked. His work came at the end of a period in American penology during which the emphasis was on reform of the convict. From the late 1860’s to the early twentieth century, Americans accepted the theory that society was responsible for reforming its criminals, an idea that fit with the nation’s optimism. Osborne’s reforms also coincided with the Progressive Era in U.S. history, during which the nation extended its interest in reform to all aspects of society, including prisons. Following Osborne’s retirement, however, the nation shifted away from reform. State legislatures moved toward a policy centered on punishment a view supported by the general public leaving the league with little authority. Many prisons in Germany experimented with implementing Mutual Welfare Leagues in the 1920’s and early 1930’s with prisoners who were close to release.

Bibliography

Abramsky, Sasha. American Furies: Crime, Punishment, and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment. New York: Beacon Press, 2007. Journalist Abramsky criticizes modern prisons for their emphasis on punishment rather than rehabilitation and calls for prison reform. Shows how prison reform remains a concern since Obsorne’s time.

Chamberlain, Rudolph W. There Is No Truce: A Life of Thomas Mott Osborne. New York: Macmillan, 1935. A factual, clearly sympathetic biography of Osborne.

“Childhood Impression Contributed to Prison Reform.” Journal of Correctional Education 52, no. 4 (December, 2001): 159. Describes how Osborne visited Auburn Prison when he was a child and the horrible sights he witnessed eventually led him to become a prison reformer.

Johnson, Herbert A. History of Criminal Justice. Cincinnati, Ohio: Anderson, 1988. Criminal justice from ancient time to the present with a brief mention of Osborne.

Osborne, Thomas Mott. Prisons and Common Sense. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1924. Osborne’s perspective on prison management as well as the operation of the Mutual Welfare League.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Society and Prisons. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1924. A clear presentation of Osborne’s prison philosophy.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Within Prison Walls. New York: D. Appleton, 1914. A graphic account of “Tom Brown’s” week as a prisoner in Auburn.

Pisciotta, Alexander. Benevolent Repression: Social Control and the American Reformatory Prison Movement. New York: New York University Press, 1994. An analysis of the attempts at reform in American prisons.

Tannenbaum, Frank. Osborne of Sing Sing. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1933. A biography focusing on Osborne’s prison reform activity.