This project aims to examine the reform of social control institutions and penal policies during the ascension and consolidation of the Constitutional Monarchy in Portugal focusing on two specific spheres of social control: the police and prison system, assessing the influence of foreign models in the definition and implementation of reforms. This project proposes a working hypothesis that it is only possible to fully understand the reforms attempted and effectively implemented in these two spheres of social control if we bring together the national context and the transnational circulation of reform models and ideals. Moreover, if it is normal to understand these exchanges in a one way road: from the more advanced to the more backward countries, this project also considers that if the majority of exchanges did occur in this direction the other way around was also present. Thence the hypothesis that some of the reforms enacted in Portugal, for example the abolition of death penalty in 1867, were also intended and indeed reached an international audience. The project will thus contribute to a more deep understanding of how the political elite that came to power in 1834 represented and theorized society and its multiple constituents and the role of the state in engineering social order and stability.  The period to be studied begins roughly with the first liberal revolution (1820) and finishes in 1867, when, on July 1, the Sentencing and Prison Reform Act abolished the death penalty and established the penitentiary system and, on the July 2, the Polícia Civil was created. Between these dates, the clash between liberals and absolutist meant for the liberals long periods of foreign exile. However, the ascension to power of the liberal side gave place to clashes between different liberal factions resulting that many debates and reforms undertaken in the 1830s and 1840s were always unsuccessful due to permanent instability. With the relative stability achieved in the 185...