Essay On Prisons In The 19th Century

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In the early 19th century, hanging was the most common form of punishment by execution for major and serious crimes Prisons was a place that was used to hold debaters and people accused of crimes that were waiting or attending a trial. Some countries were not very responsible when it came up to locking up their sentenced criminals, instead they would “dump” their criminals in other lands ( Britain 's criminals deposited in Australia). By the 1830s, many areas in Australia were refusing to be the 'dumping-ground ' for Britain 's criminals. In order to solve this, Britain added 90 more prisons between 1842 and 1877. By the Mid-Victorian Period, there were two prison systems in England. There were the county and shires gaols (another word for jail), administered by Justices of the Peace. The second system was the 'Convict Gaols ' run by central government in London. The hulks were old sailing ships at south coast harbours or on the Thames at Woolwich. They were originally used as holding prisons for people waiting to be transported. The rise in crime at the end of the French Wars caused a shortage of prisons, and so the hulks were used more to jail …show more content…

We chose jail as our project idea because we wanted to know more about prisons in the early 19th century, and we also wanted to know how jail relates to the French Revolution which occurred during the novel. We wanted to know the differences between the conditions then and the conditions today, and found out that the jails back then were not as luxurious as the jails today. When we found this out, we wondered if Dr. Manette had more luxury in his jail, would he have gone crazy then? Since just sitting there would be useless, Dr. Manette was forced to make shoes for the French, but in the jails today, the prisoners do community service. The difference between the past and the present is immense, but the French Revolution will be an event that would be remembered in the future,helping prevent jails being the reason