Governments in Victorian Britain took a great interest in
crime and in prison as a solution to crime. Prison was the
means by which 90% of serious offenders were punished. There
was considerable debate about how they were to be run and
several systems were tried.
The Separate system. Under this system, based on Cherry Hill
Prison in Pennsylvania, USA, prisoners were kept in solitary
confinement, in order to think about their life and crimes.
It was believed that they would then come face to face with
the error of their ways. The Chaplain played an important
part in this, encouraging them to turn to religion. Even when
taking exercise, or in chapel, prisoners could not see, or
talk to, each other. At Pentonville, a new prison opened in
1842 under the separate system, several prisoners went mad
and three committed suicide.
The Silent system. Under this system, based on Auburn Prison,
New York, USA, prisoners could work, but monotonous and pointless
work, in total silence. The work was:
- Picking oakum (separating the strands of old ropes so
that they could be used again - hence the saying "money
for old rope")
- The treadmill, a large wheel on which prisoners walked,
sometimes to drive a mill, sometimes just to create work.
- The crank. This was a large handle in each cell, with
a counter. The prisoner had to do so many thousand turns
a day. (Warders could tighten up the crank, making it harder
to turn: hence their nickname "screws")
- Shot drill (passing cannon-balls one to another along
The point was to make the work hard and deliberately degrading:
to break the prisoner's will and self-respect.
- Hard bed, hard board, hard labour. In the last part of
the 19th century, after the 1865 Prisons Act and under Assistant
Director of Prisons Sir Edmund du Cane, prisons were made
even tougher. Hard plank beds replaced hammocks, food was
deliberately boring and inmates had to work hard on the
monotonous, even pointless tasks described above.
To further bring prisons into line, they were all taken out
of local control and put under the government, through the
Home Office, in 1877. Old, small prisons were shut down. By
this time the normal sentence was one year in solitary confinement,
followed by three years hard labour. Even time off for good
behaviour was stopped. Corporal punishment, whipping, continued.
By the turn of the century, however, some people were saying
that this kind of regime was inhumane.
Hangings, no longer held in public after 1868, were carried
out in prison.