Wayward Puritans: Chapter 5

Erikson, Kai T.  2005.  Wayward Puritans: A Study in the Sociology of Deviance.  Pearson Education Inc.

In this chapter Erikson discusses the Puritan view of deviant behavior and the ways in which they tried to control it.  

To understand their views Erikson states that we must first understand the Puritan belief in predestination.  This is the idea that everyone on earth is born into the world with their life already planned out by God.  No matter what you do or don't do there is no way out of this set course, so that means that whether you are going to end up in heaven in hell is also out of your hands.  Therefore if you were chosen for heaven, God would bless you here on earth and you would then be so thankful for this blessing that you would be a great person to society.  If you were damned to hell you would be angry and take it out on society through acting deviantly.

I guess it was the idea that these people, who acted deviantly, were destined for hell that made the Puritans feel justified or maybe even obligated to punish them so severely.  They did things like burning people at the stake which Erikson likens to the flames of hell.  He says that since Puritans believe that God had already damned these deviants, the tortures they had to face had already been determined, all they could do was follow God's will.  Half way through page 194 he tells us that the Puritans believed "... deviant behavior was a kind of illness, not an occasion for warmth or sympathy, to be sure, but an emergency condition which had to be treated with every resource at the community's disposal, whether or not the patient suffered any discomfort in the process". 

Erikson goes on to contrast the Puritan idea of predestination with the Quaker view that anyone can change.  He mentions two prisons that were developed after the American Revolution, one leaned towards Puritan ideals and the other toward Quaker.  It turned out that the prison that was more Puritan in model was not very successful in the rehabilitation department.  To me it makes sense that you can't rehabilitate a criminal if you think she is destined to always be one.  You must believe on some lever that she can turn her life around, if you will ever be able to help her do that.  

Erikson also adds that this Puritan prison model is now the one that is most U.S. prisons are using even today.  It explains so much about our prison system and the state that it's in today.