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Inmates, including those serving time for murder, rape and drug offences, were given face lifts, liposuction, chin implants, breast lifts and nose jobs, designed to make them more physically attractive.
taxpayer-funded operations were carried out by fully qualified plastic surgeons.
early 1920s to the mid-1990s, more than 500,000 procedures were performed in jails and prisons across the US, thousands more across the UK and Canada.
They were eventually shut down due to public public outrage, removal of 'rehabilitation considerations' in sentencing, and the scandal surrounding experimentation on prisoners.
'The hypothesis was that improving an inmate's appearance would have a twofold effect,' Stone writes.
his patients included an inmate named William Ricci who had been jailed for first-degree manslaughter.
A 'dead-end kid' born into poverty, Ricci had been born with a cleft lip and palate that affected his speech. He suffered relentless bullying as a result.
One night, Ricci 'snapped' and shot dead a friend who had been mocking him.
'The circumstances and the characters changed, but the story was a classic, a sad history of alienation, disenfranchisement, and lookism, parceled along with poverty and poor parenting.'
Ricci became a model patient. On his release from prison, he settled in Manhattan where he worked as a longshoreman, rebuilt broken family relationships and even fell in love.
'This would never have happened without you,' he wrote to the surgeon. 'Thank you.'
track marks were removed from the arms of heroin users, noses were straightened and chin implants inserted to create a stronger jaw.
the 1954 Manual of Correctional Standards, a hefty 451-page volume that had been distributed to every jail and prison in the United States since 1946.
"Plastic and other types of elective surgery to correct or reduce disfigurements of the body, especially repulsive facial disfigurements, has a definite place in the rehabilitation of prisoners," it stated. "Such corrective measures tend to reduce feelings of inferiority, encourage greater self-confidence, and make it easier to obtain and hold a job."'
One surgeon in Canada calculated a 42 percent recidivism rate for inmates who received plastic surgery compared to 75 percent of the general prison population.
However there was also increasing public criticism of such schemes, prompted by cases like that of Frank Burdel Jr, a 16-year-old juvenile delinquent from Cleveland who raped and murdered a nurse after having his facial scar operated on.
In England, Michael Stratford, 19, sexually assaulted 13 women, aged four to 75, after having his nose chiseled down in prison. He admitted to 12 more offences once in police custody.
'If anything, his nasal surgery had made it easier for him to lure victims,' writes Stone.
By the mid-1990s, all of the surgery prison programs had been closed.
'Their closure can be attributed to a mix of factors: public outrage about inmates receiving "free" beauty benefits, the Supreme Court’s removal of "rehabilitation considerations" in sentencing, the scandals surrounding prisoner experimentation and the ethical violations of operating on a disenfranchised population, and a governmental directive that devalued rehabilitative solutions.'
www.dailymail.co.uk
taxpayer-funded operations were carried out by fully qualified plastic surgeons.
early 1920s to the mid-1990s, more than 500,000 procedures were performed in jails and prisons across the US, thousands more across the UK and Canada.
They were eventually shut down due to public public outrage, removal of 'rehabilitation considerations' in sentencing, and the scandal surrounding experimentation on prisoners.
'The hypothesis was that improving an inmate's appearance would have a twofold effect,' Stone writes.
his patients included an inmate named William Ricci who had been jailed for first-degree manslaughter.
A 'dead-end kid' born into poverty, Ricci had been born with a cleft lip and palate that affected his speech. He suffered relentless bullying as a result.
One night, Ricci 'snapped' and shot dead a friend who had been mocking him.
'The circumstances and the characters changed, but the story was a classic, a sad history of alienation, disenfranchisement, and lookism, parceled along with poverty and poor parenting.'
Ricci became a model patient. On his release from prison, he settled in Manhattan where he worked as a longshoreman, rebuilt broken family relationships and even fell in love.
'This would never have happened without you,' he wrote to the surgeon. 'Thank you.'
track marks were removed from the arms of heroin users, noses were straightened and chin implants inserted to create a stronger jaw.
the 1954 Manual of Correctional Standards, a hefty 451-page volume that had been distributed to every jail and prison in the United States since 1946.
"Plastic and other types of elective surgery to correct or reduce disfigurements of the body, especially repulsive facial disfigurements, has a definite place in the rehabilitation of prisoners," it stated. "Such corrective measures tend to reduce feelings of inferiority, encourage greater self-confidence, and make it easier to obtain and hold a job."'
One surgeon in Canada calculated a 42 percent recidivism rate for inmates who received plastic surgery compared to 75 percent of the general prison population.
However there was also increasing public criticism of such schemes, prompted by cases like that of Frank Burdel Jr, a 16-year-old juvenile delinquent from Cleveland who raped and murdered a nurse after having his facial scar operated on.
In England, Michael Stratford, 19, sexually assaulted 13 women, aged four to 75, after having his nose chiseled down in prison. He admitted to 12 more offences once in police custody.
'If anything, his nasal surgery had made it easier for him to lure victims,' writes Stone.
By the mid-1990s, all of the surgery prison programs had been closed.
'Their closure can be attributed to a mix of factors: public outrage about inmates receiving "free" beauty benefits, the Supreme Court’s removal of "rehabilitation considerations" in sentencing, the scandals surrounding prisoner experimentation and the ethical violations of operating on a disenfranchised population, and a governmental directive that devalued rehabilitative solutions.'
The 'forgotten' history of plastic surgery in US prisons
Killer Looks: The Forgotten History of Plastic Surgery in Prisons, by Zara Stone, charts the rise and fall of 'America's dirty little secret' of procedures performed on inmates to reduce recidivism rates.
