'Lookism', the discriminatory treatment of people who are considered physically unattractive, was not considered to be at the root of an offender's issues, but was considered a contributory factor.ĭr Lewin hoped that with their perceived flaws improved, or removed completely, prisoners would be better equipped to re-enter society after prison.Īfter a rocky start, Ricci became a model patient. '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.' 'Lewin had heard variations of this tale a thousand times,' Stone writes. He was among the early plastic surgeons performing procedures as a pay-for spectacle John Howard Crum operates on mystery convict at the Hotel Pennsylvania, New York, 1932. They were eventually shut down due to public public outrage, the Supreme Court’s removal of 'rehabilitation considerations' in sentencing, ethical objections and the scandal surrounding experimentation on prisoners.ĭr. Killer Looks: The Forgotten History of Plastic Surgery in Prisons, by Zara Stone, charts the rise and fall of 'America's dirty little secret' within the context of the shifting political attitudes towards crime, punishment and prison reform. The majority of these state-sanctioned, taxpayer-funded operations were carried out by fully qualified plastic surgeons.įrom the early 1920s to the mid-1990s, more than 500,000 procedures were performed in jails and prisons across the US, with thousands more taking place as part of similar schemes across the UK and Canada. 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. For some 70 years, plastic surgery programs were in operation across US prisons as part of a controversial scheme to reduce the recidivism rate and boost ex-convicts job prospects.

Killer Looks by Zara Stone