The text is devoted to the analysis of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi’s pedagogical concept of reforming criminal legislation, modernizing the prison system and dealing with convicts. Although this is not the main axis of his work and covers only a few texts, the message contained in them, supported by the author’s practical activity, makes him considered one of the main prison reformers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the mental father of the first wave of Swiss penitentiary reforms and the protoplast of the educational view of the purpose of imprisonment. After a introduction, the importance of Pestalozzi’s work and activities for modernizing the prison system is presented, followed by an analysis of his proposals in this regard. However, not only a presentation of his views on the treatment of criminals and the handling of convicts was made, but also the contexts and references of his ideas were extensively outlined, referring to his literary works, his practical outreach and education activities, but also illustrating his immersion in the current of reforms of the time and references to figures with whom he worked and valued. The author hopes that this will put Pestalozzi’s visionary postulates into a broader perspective.