Tocqueville Road Trip: 2. Against all obstacles
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What did Alexis de Tocqueville observe about American democracy and voluntary associations?
The Economist.
More than a league wide and covered with sales, the great river runs north into a range of high blue mountains and disappears. Its banks are a scene of bustle and prosperity delightful to observe. And overhead is an unmirable sun whose rays, filtering through the humid atmosphere of the region. Bathe everything they touch in a soft, transparent light.
Alexis de Tocqueville wrote those words in a letter to his father. He was perched in a tree at the top of a hill overlooking the Hudson Valley. The French aristocrat was a few weeks into his trip around America. Автор спендритами від Хай Соціати і Нью-Йорк. Tocville took a steamboat up the Hudson River.
Our one aim since we've come here has been to comprehend the land we are exploring. We cannot accomplish that goal unless we disassemble society. And I dare say no man, whatever his social rank, is incapable of teaching us something.
Tocqueville's next stop was what was then America's biggest prison, Sing Sing. When he visited in eighteen thirty one, it was just a few years old. He had been commissioned to write a report on the American penal system for the French government. That was the official reason for his trip, a great excuse to get funding for nine months studying a new democracy. At Sing Sing, he wanted to see something called the New York system. It was a novel approach that aimed to reform prisoners, not just punish them. It combined work with solitary confinement. The aim was to give prisoners time to reflect on their crimes, but also, through work, to give them purpose. At the time, it was considered progressive.
We are living here in the midst of 900 inmates who, supervised by 22 guards, with no chains shackling them. No wool penning them in during the day, and no hope of saving money for a nest egg. work from morning to night, like labourers on the job, in total silence. I remember seeing something of the sort among trappist monks.
Prisons in France, then were essentially dungeons. Not much had changed since the medieval period. and Togville had a personal connection. His parents were jailed during the French Revolution. They narrowly escaped the guillotine, and his father's hair turned white in his early twenties from the stress. 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. And yet, despite his background, Tocqueville wanted to show the people of France that there was no going back and America was the future. Even its prisons are offered an example to learn from.
Nobody has seen America as a beacon of penal reform for a long time. Relative to the population size, the country incarcerates six times more people than Canada. There are more Americans in prison than there are Americans in Hawaii, Maine or Alaska. And they can be violent places. Dozens of people are murdered every year while incarcerated. There are thousands of attacks on the guards. When I visited, New York State prisons were in turmoil.
Earlier this month, an investigation was launched into the death of an inmate at Marcy Correctional Facility. Today, the attorney general releasing body cam footage of an incident leading up to that man's death.
The system was reeling after guards killed an inmate on camera. The state government tabled a raft of measures, including more CCTV cameras and increased inspections. Then guards went on strike, and many didn't return to their jobs. The National Guard had to be brought in to secure the prisons. Sing Sing was affected by the strike too. New York's prisons have a reputation for violence, but like in Togville's day, Sing Sing still stands out for its reform programs. It's sometimes referred to as the Columbia of Prisons. University professors volunteer to come up and teach there. The train line from New York actually runs right through the place. It's a much smoother ride than Togville had. He called the roads deplorable and carriages infernal.
When I arrive on the train from New York City, it's a bright, crisp winter's day.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What did Alexis de Tocqueville observe about American democracy and voluntary associations?
0:04–6:37
2
How did Tocqueville’s visit to Sing Sing prison influence his view of penal reform?
6:37–11:43
3
What is the Hudson Link education programme and how does it operate inside maximum‑security prisons?
11:43–16:50
4
How do incarcerated students describe the American Dream and their personal pathways to it?
16:50–21:04
5
What challenges and successes did Sean Pica experience while earning his high‑school diploma behind bars?
21:04–26:35
6
How did Sean Pica go on to obtain a bachelor’s and master’s degree while in prison?
26:35–31:47
7
What does the data show about recidivism rates for Hudson Link compared with national averages?
31:47–37:31
8
How do the prisoners’ reflections help explain the current state of American democracy?
37:31–44:22