Locked Up by Eden Monroe

 

 

https://www.bookswelove.com/monroe-eden/

Most early jail cells were a horrifying experience.

For one thing, those incarcerated faced grossly inadequate sanitation in dark, squalid lockups, often relying on a slop bucket that ideally might be emptied once a day. Not surprisingly, disease and the spread of vermin were all too often the result of such conditions. But then poor sanitation was a widespread problem in general in past centuries. Besides, human confinement, and the treatment received while there, was seen as a form of degradation, no matter the nature of the crime. During those times anything terrible suffered by an inmate was deemed an appropriate deterrent to criminal behavior. That included unrelenting, agonizing brutality meted out in any number of cruel ways, with devices designed to inflict unimaginable suffering.

Says Daily.jstor.org about the inhumanity of the justice system of 17^th and early 18^th century colonial America:

“When the time for punishment arrived, it took the form of physical abuse or societal shaming. The stocks, whipping, pillory, and the ducking stool were common State responses used for lessor offenses.

“If someone was found guilty of thievery a letter ‘T’ would be branded on their hand after completing their corporal punishment. Human character at that time was perceived as permanent and immutable; a brand ensured the public would always see this person for what they were, a thief. Public hanging was the preferred punishment for a broad range of more serious offenses.”

Jail rations were typically inadequate and often putrid. With perhaps few exceptions (in some countries prisoners were required to pay if they wanted to eat at all), the accepted rule was that those in prison were not worthy of any form of decency or compassion, and in some jails, because of limited space, prisoners were not even segregated. Men and women were thrown into the same cell.

And whereas the wealthy often received more lenient consideration at the hands of a prejudicial system, such as release upon payment of fines, the poor usually endured much greater hardship. Because some facilities were inadequately constructed and escape possible, prisoners were commonly kept in irons for the entire duration of their stay. In most cases it could be years.

 

         In the United Kingdom during the 18^th century, death was the punishment for more than 200 offences. As an alternative to hanging serious offenders, by Act of Parliament in 1718, prisoners were transported by ship to Great Britain’s colonies to serve their sentence on distant shores doing hard labour.

Debtors were also considered to be criminals with legal action brought against them by creditors, and jailed accordingly. Primarily during the 18^th and 19^th centuries, debtors could easily make up the lion’s share of the prison population. These were people, including tradespeople, who had simply fallen on hard times, and release was incumbent upon the payment of any outstanding debt against them. However, eventual overcrowding of prisons was actually in their favour, as (UK) Parliament would have to occasionally intervene and discharge many of these debtors on certain conditions.

A lack of prison space was an ongoing challenge for authorities, and in addition to small village lockups, castle cellars, underground dungeons and rusted cages, decommissioned war ships, moored at London area docks, were also pressed into service.

Says Parliament,uk about the incarceration of prisoners on those ships: “What began as a temporary measure became a permanent arrangement as prisoners were put to hard labour on the docks and dredging the Thames.”

In early Canada and the United States, debtors were also jailed locally awaiting due process, and to address overcrowding in general, Canada’s first large prison began receiving prisoners in June of 1835 at Kingston in Upper Canada (now Ontario). According to Thecanadianencyclopedia.ca: “Kingston penitentiary, opened with great hopes of solving the problem of crime and criminals, was plagued by dissension, corruption and inhumanity from the beginning.

“The first major investigation, the Brown Report (1849), is full of cases like that of Peter Charboneau, an 11-year-old child committed to Kingston prison for 7 years in 1845. While in prison he was lashed 57 times in 8½ months for offences in the jail, including staring, winking and laughing….”

 

        Jail reforms were slow to come, but over time several individuals and organizations dedicated themselves to addressing systemic issues.

It was the harsh prison conditions witnessed by Elizabeth (Gurney) Fry in the UK’s “filthy and disease-ridden” Newgate Prison that spurred her into action. She was outraged that upwards of 300 women, along with their children, were packed into an inhumanely small space. It was her activism that first saw male and female prisoners properly segregated, also providing education for incarcerated women and children as well as many other important reforms.

John Howard was also an 18^th century social reformer, and he dedicated his life to not only improving prison conditions per se, but for better treatment of the prisoners themselves. In Canada, Agnes Campbell Macphail was the first female Member of Parliament in Canadian history, and also a fearless advocate for much-needed penal reform in Canada. In the US, Thomas Mott Osborne, a former prison warden, took up the fight for correctional improvements in his country, as did the like-minded countryman, Austin MacCormick.

There were certainly exceptions, where the gaol (early English spelling) keeper and his family lived in an apartment that was part of the overall structure, and regular meals were provided to prisoners.

Although the incarceration experience today is vastly different from what it once was for most in less enlightened times, and this too varies by country, public laws must still be upheld and justice served. As indicated in statista.com, topping the list of countries with the largest number of prisoners per 100,000 of the national population as of February 2025, is El Salvador, the smallest country in Central America. Last on that list is Belize, also located in Central America. The United States comes in at number five.

And while every country in the world has their own prison system to hold lawbreakers accountable, Vatican City “… the world’s smallest fully independent nation-state” according to Britannica.com, does not have a prison system as we know it.

(ewtnvatican.com) “Firstly, while the Vatican City State operates with its own judicial system and penal code, it lacks a traditional prison. It possesses facilities for temporary detention post-arrest, but these do not constitute a formal jail. Should sentences become enforceable, the convicted individuals would serve their time in Italy, as per the Lateran Pacts agreement. Secondly, the Vatican legislation stipulates that if sentences do not exceed a certain threshold, they may be suspended. Essentially, imprisonment only occurs if additional crimes are committed within Vatican jurisdiction.”

Unfortunately, for any number of reasons, countless innocent people have been wrongfully convicted and put to death, others incarcerated for extended periods of time. This is the fate that has befallen many (especially before fingerprinting and DNA analysis), the longest in the US being, according to theguardian.com, Glynn Simmons. He spent more than forty-eight years in prison before being exonerated for a murder he did not commit.

And being framed for a crime, including murder, is not just the unsettling stuff of entertainment industry imaginations. It’s very real, says mirandarightslawfirm.com: “‘Framing’ is a frightening reality for many criminal defendants. Yes, you could be framed for a crime, and it happens more frequently than we would like to admit….”

In When Shadows Stir, Book Two of The Kavenaghs (1870-1879) a harsh 19^th century jail awaits for just such a situation….

  https://www.bookswelove.com/monroe-eden/