As Robert Worth reports in his article ("A Model Prison") in the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly, McKean is a federal prison in Bradford, Pennsylvania, that is often compared by visitors to a college campus. The prison's ethos is embodied in this statement by its former warden: "If you want people to behave responsibly, and treat you with respect, then you treat other people that way." With its clean conditions and pleasant atmosphere, McKean defies the popular image of a correctional institute. But in an era where the public demand for "getting tough on crime" now encompasses a demand for "getting tough on prisoners," McKean and institutions like it have, not surprisingly, come under fire. These days America, bracing itself for a crime wave, is increasingly fearful. Rehabilitation is out of vogue; retributive justice is in. Why should we coddle prisoners?, people ask. Inmates are in prison to be punished. Prison is supposed to be unpleasant. If the prospect of prison is not an unpleasant one, then how will it deter would-be criminals? Why spend taxpayer money to make the prison environment more livable?

Here's why. As Worth writes, "McKean, by several measures, may well be the most successful medium-security prison in America." One of these measures is financial--at McKean it costs $6,000 per year less to house each inmate than at the average federal prison. The American Correctional Society has given McKean one of its highest possible ratings. And the number of incidents at the prison--escapes, homicides, suicides, assaults, and so on--has been remarkably low. Princeton criminologist John DiIulio says that "McKean is probably the best managed prison in the country." Still, McKean's success has been won against the grain of prevailing sentiment. Dennis Luther, the (now-retired) warden largely responsible for McKean's being what it is, continually ran afoul of the management at the Bureau of Prisons, who considered him a "maverick." And Congress, ignoring the ingredients of McKean's success, has passed legislation--such as mandatory minimums--that will make prisons more crowded while cutting funding for educational programs. Robert Worth, who is a Charles Newcombe fellow pursuing his doctorate in English at Princeton, may have prison reform in his blood. His great-great-great grandfather was for many years warden of the Eastern Penitentiary, in Philadelphia, the fruit of an early penal reform movement.