Prior to the 1800’s Women’s prison really did not exist. Prisons were all coed with women serving their sentence right next to the men and with the children. Women were expected and did perform “hard labor” just like the men. Work that women performed in the prison system were things like cooking, sewing and the laundry for the facility. The women were to preserve their image of a lady but worked just as hard as their counterparts. Women often complained that they were not being fed enough because society said, “ladies do not eat that much” but were being worked harder than the men. One inside of prison was lucky to be fed on a daily basis, and they were fed inside the cell, with the food just being pushed inside their cell. Bathroom facilities really did not exist. They were often just buckets that one would have to use and did not get emptied on a regular basis. Showers consisted of using a bucket to wash yourself as best you could. This caused a lot of sickness and disease, not to mention the stench. Today prisoners are not forced to work and are fed 3 meals a day inside of a cafeteria like atmosphere. Prisoners that do get to perform work are called “trustees”. This is an earned privilege that prisoner request and is granted if qualified by the staff. They are given proper medical attention and also have showers and toilets.

Children were later separated from the adults for 3 different reasons. First and foremost, children being placed with adults were taken advantage of, both physically and mentally. They were also treated like adults and needed to be cared for in a different way. By treating them like adults this left little room for them to actually be rehabilitated and learning. The guards of a correctional facility or prison had no way of knowing how to treat a juvenile. This could leave juveniles looking to adult inmates for guidance and comfort. Lastly, life in an adult prison for youth was just too hard for a juvenile. A juvenile had a choice, either to break and completely give up and become easy prey for an adult inmate or become harder and survive.
Prison labor served several purposes. As business grew, the companies could turn to the prison facility and have their manual labor performed by inmates for little to no cost. This in turn raised the profit margin for companies. The facility liked it because the prison was self-sufficient and work keeps inmates busy, leaving them less time to get into fights or other kinds of disturbances. Lastly when the “Great Depression” struck and the families of men on the inside had no way of sustaining themselves anymore, the men on the inside were given the work and paid small wages that in turned helped their families with finances. Prison work started to decline when people started to take notice that inmates were being worked like dogs, under paid for the effort and often treated like slaves.

References:
Corrections: The Fundamentals, by Burk Foster. Published by Prentice-Hall. Copyright © 2006 by Pearson Education, Inc.