EARLY BRITISH PRISONS
In England the first use of prisons was to house vagrants and other idle
persons. Later, minor offenders and debtors were imprisoned - major offenders, on
the other hand, were executed. Prisons were mainly places to put people away and
forget about them. Thus, they were neglected and poorly-run institutions subject to
terrible overcrowding, filth and disease. Charles Dickens presented a vivid picture of
life in London's famous Marshalsea debtors' prison in his novel
Little Dorrit,
published in 1857. Even more famous were London's Newgate and Fleet prisons,
known for their overcrowding, filth and violence. In Great Britain the movement to
reform prisons was begun in 1773 by John Howard, the appointed sheriff of
Bedfordshire. His reports on prison conditions, especially "The State of the Prisons,"
spurred a sweeping reform movement that was also influential in the United States.
His reports coincided with an extreme overcrowding of British prisons, in part
because transportation of criminals to overseas colonies such as Australia had
diminished. So overcrowded were some prisons that many criminals were housed on
decaying ships in the Thames River. The Prisons Act of 1791 was the first step
toward creating a national prison system and alleviating the worst conditions.
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