• What were women’s prisons like before the 1800s? How have they changed?

Before the 1800’s women were treated the same as men in prison. Women were punished just like the men were, with the exception that pregnant women were often spared punishment until after they had given birth. Both men and women were mixed together as prisoners and were watched by male jailers, which made the women prisoners subjected to abuse and mistreated. Most female inmates at this time were prostitutes or thieves and because of this no one really worried about what was happening to them. This all began to change in the early 1800’s when Elizabeth Gurney Fry began a ministry for the women in prison. Fry would visit the prisons and read the Bible to the female inmates even though she was advised of the dangers that were possible. Fry created the Association of the Improvement of the Female Prisoners in Newgate in 1817. In the U.S., Eliza W.B. Farnham was the head matron of the women’s wing at Sing Sing Prison in New York from 1844-1848. She tried to make the women’s prison more like a home instead of a prison. She was fired for basically being too nice to the inmates. In 1873 the first separate prison for women was built. (Foster, "Women's Prisons," 2006)
The prisons have changed because now the male and female prisoners have been separated.

• What are the three basic arguments established in the 1800s that supported the separation of juvenile prisoners from adult prisoners? What would happen if there were no distinction between prisons for juveniles and adults?

According to Foster (2006), there were three basic arguments regarding the juvenile prisoners: 1. the penitentiary procedure was too hard on tender youth. 2. Juveniles would be subjected to the bad habits from older criminals. 3. Juveniles could be reformed if they were placed into an institution designed specifically