The Analysis of the Early Victorian Prisons in England - Essay Example

Early Victorian Prisons: A Critical Review of the System (Fill in with your information etc Early Victorian Prisons: A Critical Review of the System The prison system itself is a complicated and complex working of methods and mayhem, and although it has changed dramatically throughout the history of time, there are a definitive amount of factors which remain the same, from as early as the 1600s to the present day. The definition of a prison is 'A building for confinement of persons sentenced or awaiting trial for crime; a place of captivity'. The definition may seem rather self-explanatory and overt, but there are many a crucial details behind that particularly blunt phrase. Prisons are considered to be institutions used for imprisonment or incarceration and in England today accommodation for prisoners in these institutions are divided into wings that are usually identified by a name, number, or letter. Today there are an estimated nine million people imprisoned worldwide, with the United Kingdom alone accounting for approximately 73 000 inmates in its facilities. This high proportion of prisoners has been associated with many things, such as better funded criminal justice systems, a more strict approach to law and order, and a larger gap between the rich and the poor. There are numerous differences between the prisons of today and those of years ago; one major change being that in early Victorian England people were imprisoned and often sentenced for lengthy periods of time for seemingly important things such as 'picking oakum', whereas in today's world that is certainly not the same situation. Victorian prisons were seen as unpleasant and rundown places with a main goal to keep the surroundings as miserable as possible in an attempt to deter people from committing crimes. The prisons were small, old, and badly-run. London and its suburbs held over a dozen prisons in all, and debtors and convicts, those to be rehabilitated and those simply to be detained all had no trouble finding a place to wait out their days. By the 1860s there were two distinct types of Victorian prisons: the local and the convict prisons. The older, which dated back from as far back as the Saxon times, was called the local prison. This itself was made up of two equally distinct parts: the jail (or gaol) and the House of Correction. Prisons in England during the early Victorian era are of particular interest and subjectivity, and in order to be able to come to a clearer and more cognitive view on this subject matter, the following questions must be addressed: 1. What are prisons 2. To what extent did early Victorian prisons in England deter and reform criminals 3. What are some conclusions that can be made on early Victorian prisons in England By discussing these four questions, we can come to a more knowledgeable and understanding opinion on this subject of interest. This is what will be dissertated in the following. What are Prisons Prisons are literally defined as places where persons are confined and usually deprived of a range of personal freedoms, as punishment for particular and often various crimes. Prisons are also often times used as a tool of political repression, particularly in times of heightened war or conflict. "A prison system is the organizational arrangement of the provision and operation of prisons." The United Kingdom has the highest incarceration rate among all of Western Europe, with an approximated 109 out of every 100 000 people imprisoned in the present day; today there are 139 prisons in England and Wales, with 19 of those having been built rather recently - 1995 or beyond. The rise in the prison population in England has been primarily attributed to changes in terms of sentencing. Crimes such as shoplifting and other forms of petty theft have overtly harsher sentences in the present day than years ago; in 1995 alone over 129 people were in prison for shoplifting, and in 2001, 3 000 people were sent to prison for petty theft for a first time offence. Prisons in England have changed drastically, with anew degrees and forms of sentencing, and major differences in the method of deterring and reforming criminals. The first institutional houses of correction were created in England around the mid-1600s, starting with the London Bridewell of 1955. Over the next few decades other provincial English cities developed prisons of their own and the idea then spread to other cities and foundations in Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and some north German cities. The sole original purpose of these correctional institutions was "to remove beggars, idlers and vagrants from especially the urban scene." (Munck, 2005). The institutions were considered to be put into a broader context, in the sense that on the one hand these houses of correction were at the moderate end of system of punishment which was purposely intended to control an alarming range of 'anti-social' behavior. This behavior ranged from minor immoralities to full-scale capital crimes, each which had to be dealt with separately and on their own terms. To What Extent did Early Victorian Prisons in England Deter and Reform Criminals The words 'reform' and 'reformer', deployed in political and religious controversy for several centuries, and increased in currency from the mid-eighteenth century. However before 1830, to be a reformer meant that you principally supported parliamentary reform and other campaigns which used different terms to define their objectives. The English were concerned with adjustment rather than change, and reform then emerged as a sudden alternative to revolution: as progress and improvement rather than as a dangerous form of innovation. By 1819, radical reform was identified with outside agitation among the popular classes who frequently depicted 'reformers' as hypocrites and backsliders; paradoxically their willingness to adopt the language of radicalism freed up the term reform for moderates. Historians have variously employed the notion of an 'age of reform': sometimes including within its scope the build-up of pressure for 'reform' from the late eighteenth or nineteenth century, sometimes limiting their attention to the years which followed the 'Great Reform Act' of 1832. The Victorian era of Great Britain is considered to be the height of the British Industrial Revolution, and is defined as consisting of the years from 1837 to 1901, when Queen Victoria reigned. The 'early' Victorian era can refer to before 1837 and beyond until the late 1800s, and the abundance of change and restitution which occurred during this time is what makes this era so particularly intriguing and complex. It was during this time period that Britain went through some severely extraordinary changes. Not only did the population rise from 10 million in 1970 to 42 million in 1900, but the alternating of people from area to area was also heightened during this time. In 1750 most of these people lived in villages in the countryside, while by the time 1900 came most of these British people lived in separate towns and cities. In 1970 London was the only actual city in Britain, however smaller places such as Liverpool and Manchester were following close behind; Liverpool's population rose from 22,000 to 450,000 and Manchester's grew just as dramatically from 18,000 to 376,000. With all these new forms of industries and transport, some people became newly rich while others fates went opposite, and this was the cause for so many people living on the edge of poverty. Although there were many explanations for the rise in crime, all of these factors certainly brought about the most of it, and although Britain had as of then relied on community action, due to the fact that the communities had all changed so much, it was entirely obvious that the old methods would not be successful anymore and that there must instead be a new plan of methods. The Poor Law of 1601 in England was created in order to assign responsibility for the poor to parishes (the local civil government). The difficulty which remained on the parishes in regards to their building of workhouses to employ the poor on a profitable basis increased to a basically unapproachable height, and during the 18th Century, these workhouses began to degenerate into rather overly simple mixed receptacles where every sort of person was dumped into. Orphans were one prime specific example of the sort of persons who were threw into these receptacles; they would be placed in workhouses if orphanages were full or not existent at all for that matter. "at the very time when manual workers were being incorporated into the Victorian state structure through a grudging recognition of trade unions and political rights, they were being actively discriminated against in other areas of the civil law." (Johnson, 1993, p.1). The setup of the prison system and prisons themselves were set up poorly in the Victorian era, with most jails and jailing centers being of extremely low standards, and mostly dark, overcrowded and filthy. Neither race nor gender played a part in the separation of persons in the jails, with men and women of all races and ages, whether convicted or not, sane or insane, all placed together randomly and with no pause of questionability at all. In Victorian England there were two categories to which a crime could fall under: indictable and summery. Indictable crimes are crimes which are relatable to the felony crimes of today. The major crimes are considered to fall into this category: murder, armed robbery, burglary, larceny, rape, assaults on police, and the like. Summery crimes are relatable to the misdemeanor crimes of today, and consist of crimes such as: property crimes, vagrancy, drunkenness, prostitution, minor larceny, and all other minor offences. The London Metropolitan Police system was created in 1829, after the government came to a realization of necessary security for the safety of the public. "The policemen then were poorly paid. A constable's usual pay was 19 shillings, a week. An inspector got around 2 pounds, and some of that money was taken off for the cost of their uniform". ("Study"). When Queen Victoria's reign began in 1837, the London Metropolitan Police System was only one proper police force in Britain. Before this, the law and order of Victorian England was patrolled and enforced by 'parish constables' - people who were elected annually - and by night watchmen. The crimes which took place in Victorian England certainly did not go without their proper punishments. During the early Victorian England era, public hangings were often, and were viewed by large groups of people. Humiliation tactics such as having the stocks placed in the middle of the town and having people look, beat, and torture the prisoners was a regular occurrence; in fact one of the main occurrences which led to the entirety of prisons altogether. It was during the 1700s that prisons in England were at their worst, presumably so bad because of the fact that the majority of prisons then were privately owned and the owners tended to use the inmates for working purposes. The prisoners' life was a horrible one during this time period; most prisons lacked sewage and heat, and most times the criminals would find themselves working anywhere up to 15 hours and beyond, with only short breaks allowed for meals. It was in the mid-1700s when public hangings became outlawed, and this was a major cause of the sudden over population which occurred in prisons across England. This over abundance of prisoners also meant trouble for the prisoners themselves, because the prisoners who didn't really commit indictable crimes were often times killed in jail by the guards. What this meant was that the prisoners who went to jail were there to be executed, and if they were not there for that then they were usually shipped off to factories or to other prisons. The Victorian prison is an entire other classification in itself, with separate characteristics and definitions. In the 1860s, 52 000 out of 74 000 people imprisoned were sentenced to terms of one month or less. "The population of England and Wales in 1861 was 20 066 224. Of the 12 000 sentenced by higher courts nearly 7 000 were for sentences of 6 months or less. Only 2100 were sentenced to the harshest punishment - penal servitude, in contrast during the same period 9 000 debtors had been sent to jail." (Norris & Rothman, Oxford University Press, 1995). The Victorian prison had a developed and significant distinctive character. They were considered to be smelly, cold and oppressive places with poor hygiene and food levels, invariably low standards and strict rules. "Prisoners slept on simple plank beds and the diet was very basic and monotonous" ("MG", n.d.). The diet that prisoners were provided with depended on the length of time they were sentenced to; those with sentences of less than 3 weeks were given only bread and gruel, those with longer sentences were fed potatoes and soup, while those in for the long term were allowed a little meat. Children and adults were sent to the same prisons, with the first separate prison exclusively for boys built at Parkhurst, London in 1838. This was a way to separate by gender, but even then the 'difficult' offenders could still be returned to an ordinary prison. Reformatory schools became the new system in 1854, whose daily regime consisted of hard physical labor and strenuous other tasks. By 1866 there were about 65 of these schools holding 5 000 young offenders. The philosophy of utilitarianism truly influenced many of the social reforms in England during the Victorian age. Known also as 'Benthamism' or 'Philosophical Radicalism', the name Jeremy Bentham is a major association with this subject, in that his philosophical principles extended into the realm of the government; these principles have accounted for several reform acts which were entered into English law, such as: the Factory Act of 1833, the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, the Prison Act of 1835, the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, the Committee on Education in 1839, the Lunacy Act of 1845, and the Public Health Act of 1845. The two of Bentham's most influential works were easily the Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (1789), and the Constitutional Code (1830-1841). Both of these had a great effect on the Victorian era. In the matter of utilitarianism, Bentham introduced what he called the 'principle of utility'. This was considered to be the principle of which actions were judged, whether right or wrong, and in this Bentham pointed out that he believed human behavior was motivated by the desire to obtain some pleasure and avoid some pain. 'Victorian morality' is a term which was often applied by persons living at the time Queen Victoria reigned (1837-1901). The Victorian era has been regarded by historians as a time of many contradictions. A class system which set harsh living conditions for many, combined with a plethora of social movements and concerning public morals made for obvious apparent contradictions, with a widespread hope towards improved sociality, which at the time included social phenomena such as prostitution, child labor, and an imperialist colonizing economy. A rapidly growing middle class was alive in Victorian England due to the Industrial Age and the abundant financial opportunities which surrounded it. Victorians were earnestly worried about the rising crime rate, and were firm believers in punishment for criminals. The most common punishments were "transportation - sending the offender to Australia, or execution - hundreds of offences carried the death penalty." (Ward, 2005). During the early 1800s the death penalty began being removed from such crimes as pick pocketing and other minor offences, but remained for crimes such as murder, burglary, and robbery. Public whippings were a major form of punishment which was used in early Victorian England, but over the course of time the proportion of whippings carried out slowly began to decline. The public whipping of women was actually abolished in 1817, and the same applied to men in the late 1800s. With executions and punishments such as public whippings either declining or being abolished, the Victorians knew they needed a new form of punishment and deterrence for criminals. They wanted a way to apprehend, punish, and reform criminals, which is what truly began the system of prisons. The Victorian prisons in England thought that the best way to deal with criminal behavior was by suppressing it with hard labor, routine, and religion. Victorian prisons considered themselves (at the time) to have one of the most successful and productive regimens in regards to the deterring and reforming of criminals. Their idea was that in order to deter these criminals, and overcome the immorality that produced criminal behavior was by setting strict rules, and forcing the criminal to live a harsh and dark life in prison. The entering of the prison was in the system's eyes, the prime opportunity to begin the drastic reformation process onto criminals. Persons were stripped, searched, washed, given shapeless and drab clothing to wear, and shorn of any hair. Mothers were taken away from children in order to 'end negative influences on the young', and husbands and wives were separated to 'avert breeding'. Even siblings were kept apart because there was a 'natural inclination' of the poor towards the committing of incest. The Victorian prisons attempted to give each criminal a new identity by giving them new haircuts, a bath, uniforms, and a number rather than a name as identification when they entered the prison. This was in hopes of disconnecting prisoners with their old criminal identities; the goal was to give each criminal a new identity so that they would move forward in the world, leaving their criminal past behind them. Prisoners were forced to face their faults once in prisons, by being contained in small silent rooms, and made to do hard, boring work. Tasks such as stone-splitting, mill-driving (on treadmills), bone-crushing (for fertilizer), walking a treadwheel, or picking oakum (separating strands of rope) were the most common forms of hard labor. Picking oakum consisted of 'the pulling to pieces of off tarry ropes', and many of the prisoners were forced to do this for up to five hours a day. The treadmill was a 'big iron frame of steps around a revolving cylinder'. With no useful purpose at all, prisoners were put on the treadmill for up to six hours a day. The 'crank' was another form of hard labor, and was s sort of counting device which was fitted into a box of gravel. The prisoner was forced to turn the handle of the crank around for a given number of rotations which consequently moved the gravel around. This was another form of labor which in all actuality had no purpose whatsoever, and was solely used for means of punishment. As a result of some prisoners not being able to turn the crank for the amount of time required, the straight jacket was introduced. Initially, the prisoner was clothed in the straight jacket and strapped to the wall of his cell for long periods of time - often up to six straight hours. Used chiefly on male prisoners, if found unconscious due to passing out, a bucket of water would be thrown on them. If a child misbehaved in prison they were often times deprived of any extra food and put on a diet of purely bread and water, and sometimes even put in solitary confinement. Hard labor was meant to highly contribute to the reformation of offenders by teaching them to be industrious and also to deter others from committing the same crime. Meals were inadequate, and things such as heating were overlooked; often an entire block of rooms shared but one fireplace. The prisons (workhouses) were administered by unpaid bureaucrats and were headed by an elected official titled the 'Beatle'. Prisoners were treated cruelly, with scorn and ridicule, and were often reminded by the civil servants in charge with Biblical passages to show how 'lucky' they were. ("Blessed are the poor"). Law and order was a major issue in early Victorian England, and with huge new cities developing following the Industrial Revolution there was an increasing need for additional housing resources; transporting criminals to Australia was certainly not working out positively, and by the mid-1800s Australia was already complaining that they did not want to be the dumping-ground for England's criminals. With the only answer seeming to be the building of more prisons and the reforming of police, over 90 prisons were built or added between 1842 and 1877. It was in the early 1860s that prisons were truly reformed; in some prisons the cooking was excellent, far better in fact than in most motels and inns. However, food is not the only area where English convicts seemed to be better taken care of than non-convicts. Although the aim merely before this was to pressure and make miserable those in prison, it seemed strange that now through the reform the convicts appeared far better off than the non-convicts. The convicts got exercise, had regular habits, sufficient feeding, were healthier than that of the average population and didn't have to worry about keeping a job. There were of course those who contradicted the prison system, who thought that prison and the methods and means associated and used with it were not the answer, and who especially thought that children most certainly should not be involved in the prisons, and not be treated the same as adults. Many pointed out the notion that the criminals needed to be given an education and/or taught a trade, because otherwise they had no other option and would only go right back to their old ways as soon as they were released. One example of a system that agreed with this opinion is Parkhurst prison, which was located on the Isle of Wight, and first opened in the year 1838. Many prisoners there were given an education, taught a trade, and had some effort made by those in due charge to teach the inmates wrong from right. After this example was set, many others soon followed. The forcing of hard labor upon inmates was used as the primarily focused deterring agent, and it was hoped that through this, criminals would decide that because they did not want to have to return to prison (and endure any more ridiculously hard labor) they would force themselves to no longer be delinquent and commit crimes, but instead reform themselves in a way and stay out of trouble. And, although the point of how difficult it was to endure these laborious chores was critically clear, the idea itself did not show any positive results immediately. Gradually, through the Victorian era, the older shaming punishments began to lose worth, and after a while fell out of use altogether. Punishments such as the stocks and willory and whipping were all focused in this category. Fewer people were hanged, many people began to find public executions to be barbaric rather than entertaining and amusing, and after 1868, after much dispute, public hangings were only allowed in private, in prison. A rather surprising form of punishment was used in the late part of the Victorian era, which was transportation. What this consisted of was prisoners being transported to America, and then after the United States independence in 1776, to Australia. The primary reason transportation was used as a punishment was due to the many advantages that it was believed to have held. These advantages included the following: It was believed that crimes were committed by a 'criminal class', so removing the offenders from the county should be reason to expect crime to decline; Little was known about Australia, so fear of the unknown, it was thought, might deter people from committing crimes; The convict had an opportunity to think about changing his or ways; and The convicts also provided labor to build up British colonies overseas What are Some Conclusions That can be Made on Early Victorian Prisons in England It is clear through shown evidence that the prisons in early Victorian England were grim, shabby, unkempt, overcrowded, and miserable places of confinement for criminals. The prison system had its own way of deterring and reforming criminals, in hopes that they would forget their past errs and once released - if released - would go on to live a non-criminal way of life. Whether that was by means of confining the criminals in a small dark room in order to force them to think of what they had done and hopefully regret it in due of the circumstances they were living in, or by forcing miserable and hard labor upon them such as walking a treadwheel or picking oakum - their ways at the time had purpose, and some even still continue to be used in the present day, although altered somewhat dramatically for the most part.Through the main form of punishment - hard labor - those who were imprisoned suffered daily strenuous work, and the least able-bodied - the old, the sick, and the very young are the ones who suffered the most. The form of deterrence and reform that was used in early Victorian England resulted positively in regards to the statistics. Educated people in England around the year 1900 believed in social progress because they had experienced it. After the reform, England was where the statistics were best, and the crime and illegitimacy rates had fallen by about half from their mid-nineteenth century high. Public drunkenness became rare and even alcoholism ceased to be an accepted fact of private life. "Literacy became universal, sanitation and diet improved at every level of society. People put great effort into staying clean, and governments built infrastructure that enormously increased the availability of water to common people." (Himmelfarb, 1995). It was in fact not the rulers of Britain who saved the nation, but the pious middle class. There was a moral reform that, within a century, had transformed society almost as much as technology had transformed the economy. The prisons in early Victorian England were tough, and were firm believers in punishment for criminals. The deterring and reforming of criminals was of great importance in the early Victorian prison system, and by means of various different methods the prison system structured and applied these means, and truly altered the ways of prisons of the future. Early Victorian England had a rapidly rising crime rate, and it was the initial idea that hard and strenuous labor was one way that would make the prisoners come to their senses and leave their old criminal ways behind. Although at first the forms of punishment certainly overrode the intention to purposefully reform, the notion that perhaps prisoners should be taught a new way of life rather than simply suffering purposeless and intolerable cruelty while imprisoned began to catch on, and the ideas of education and more humane reformation became more popular. The prisons in early Victorian England were groundbreakers in a sense, because they were the first attempters at many things in regards to prison rules and regulations, and they began regimes of deterring and reforming that will most likely forever be used as examples for ways of the future methods. References Johnson, P 1993, Class Law in Victorian England, Past & Present, pp.1-5. McConville, S 1994, English Local Prisons, 1860-1900: Next Only to Death, pp.400-536. "MG" (n.d.), The Development of the Prison System, Retrieved February 2, 2006, from http://www.smr.herefordshire.gov.uk/post-medieval/prisons/development.htm Morris, N & Rothman, David J 1995, The Oxford History of the Prison, Oxford University Press, pp.250-305. Munck, T 2005, Forced Labor, Workhouse Prisons and the Early Modern State: A Case Study, Institute of Historical Research, Retrieved February 2, 2006, from http://www.history.ac.uk/eseminars/sem6.html Savage, G Promises Broken: Courtship, Class and Gender in Victorian England, by Ginger S. Frost/336. "Study" 2006, Crime and Punishment, Studyworld, Retrieved February 1, 2006, from http://www.studyworld.com/newsite/ReportEssay/SocialIssues/Political%5CCrime_and_Punishment-6.htm Swift, R 1997, Heroes or Villains The Irish, Crime and Disorder in Victorian England, Albion, pp.50-104. Taylor, H 1998, Rationing crime; the Political Economy of Criminal Statistics since the 1850s, Economic History Review, pp.200-245. Read More