During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, absolute solitude and strict regimentation of the prisoner’s every action were viewed as strategies for transforming habits and ethics. That is to say, the idea that imprisonment should be the main form of punishment reflected a belief in the potential of white mankind for progress, not only in science and industry, but at the level of the individual member of society as well. Prison reformers mirrored Enlightenment assumptions of progress in every aspect of human—or to be more precise, white Western—society.
