Plastic Makes Perfect: An Analysis of Plastic Surgery as Rehabilitation in Early to Late 20th Century Prison Populations

Authors

Jack West, University of Arkansas

Keywords

plastic surgery, prisons, criminality, sociopathology, media

Abstract

As early as 1910, journalists from around the United States reported on the cause-and- effect relationship between a criminal’s physical appearance, their offenses, and the plastic surgeons willing to help them. These surgeons were interested in changing the physical “causes” of criminality to sever the mental roots of crime, inferiority, and anti-social attitude. This paper examines the use of plastic surgery programs as reform in prison through the lens of popular newspaper and journal articles and argues that public perception and reaction revealed in these articles shaped the prison program’s journey from its underground beginning to its eventual demise.

Recommended Citation

West, Jack (2022) "Plastic Makes Perfect: An Analysis of Plastic Surgery as Rehabilitation in Early to Late 20th Century Prison Populations," The Ozark Historical Review: Vol. 50, Article 6.

Available at: https://scholarworks.uark.edu/ohr/vol50/iss1/6