期刊名称：Crimes and Misdemeanours : Deviance and the Law in Historical Perspective
印刷版ISSN：1754-0445
出版年度：2010
卷号：4
期号：1
页码：37-52
出版社：SOLON
摘要：This article concerns the 16 year penal experiment at Brixton, Britain‟s first convict
prison for women (1853-1869). From the start, the regime at Brixton was seen by
Home Office officials and prison staff alike as a second-best solution, since
contemporary views on „appropriate‟ women‟s work ruled out the hard physical labour
of the men‟s public works prisons, felt to bring salutary effects to both body and mind.
The emphasis was placed instead on inculcating those domestic, „womanly‟ values
felt to be under threat from the social forces unleashed by the Industrial Revolution.
However, a combination of the enforced sedentary lifestyle, together with women‟s
supposedly „impulsive‟ and „excitable‟ natures, were blamed for creating an
unexpected problem of discipline in the prison. Despite removing some of the worst
cases to Millbank for a dose of separate confinement, the prison authorities felt
continually frustrated and powerless in the face of persistent rule-breaking at Brixton.
Caught between the conflicting demands of the reformatory project and calls from
outside to tighten the penal screw, and clearly divided on the question of just what
punishments were suitable for women prisoners, they saw no solution except to build
a new prison and try again.
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