The eighteenth century European prison system was in ethical turmoil when John Howard stumbled upon it. Management of prisons was minimal; few laws or regulations existed, and if they did, the government rarely enforced them. The physical conditions of the prisons were revolting; cells were damp and earthen dungeons, many with no windows, forcing the prisoners to share what little space they had with rats and insects. There was almost never any furniture, no tables or chairs, and a makeshift straw mattress in place of a bed (Howard, State of Prisons, 5). But Howard saw the worst injustice in the cruel treatment of prisoners. He describes numerous accounts of this injustice in his book, The State of Prisons. Howard shares his thoughts on one such occasion in Vienna, where, at the largest prison in Austria, he found a man attached standing to the wall by chains, so sick he...