Over the course of U.S. history, the very definition of punishment in America has been subject to a variety of changes and has served as the basis for much debate. Mark Colvin examines three case studies from the 19th century that represent shifts in the interpretation of punishment: the rise of penitentiaries in the Northeast; the changes in treatment of women offenders in the North; and the transformation of punishment in the South after the Civil War. In addition, he examines topics such as how punishment differs from reform, the treatment of women in reformatories, and the notion that convict leasing and chain gangs of black prisoners in the South are a perpetuation of plantation slave labor.