John Prideaux

speaker

643 appearances 3 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 19 Jun

John Prideaux’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 3.

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The Intelligence from The Economist · Tocqueville Road Trip: 2. Against all obstacles · 13 Jun 2026 podcast

The aim was to give prisoners time to reflect on their crimes, but also, through work, to give them purpose. matched

At the time, it was considered progressive. matched

Prisons in France, then were essentially dungeons. matched

Not much had changed since the medieval period. matched

and Togville had a personal connection. matched

His parents were jailed during the French Revolution. matched

They narrowly escaped the guillotine, and his father's hair turned white in his early twenties from the stress. matched

Given what the French Revolution had done to his parents, it's all the more surprising that Tocqueville was so enthusiastic about the American one. matched

And yet, despite his background, Tocqueville wanted to show the people of France that there was no going back and matched

America was the future. matched

Even its prisons are offered an example to learn from. matched

Nobody has seen America as a beacon of penal reform for a long time. matched

Relative to the population size, the country incarcerates six times more people than Canada. matched

There are more Americans in prison than there are Americans in Hawaii, Maine or Alaska. matched

And they can be violent places. matched

Dozens of people are murdered every year while incarcerated. matched

There are thousands of attacks on the guards. matched

When I visited, New York State prisons were in turmoil. matched

The system was reeling after guards killed an inmate on camera. matched

The state government tabled a raft of measures, including more CCTV cameras and increased inspections. matched

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