How Significant Was the Opening of Pentonville Prison in the Short-Term in Making Methods of Punishment More Humane?

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How significant was the opening of Pentonville Prison in the short-term in making methods of punishment more humane? The 19th century marked a pinnacle of success as the revolutionary symbol Pentonville was opened in 1842. It marked a ‘history of efforts to devise perfectly rational and reformative mode of imprisonment' . This new ‘model prison’ represented a more humane method of imprisonment. The aim of the prison was to reform the prisoner through solitary confinement, religion and order. This approach was a symbolic step to civilise punishment, it was a huge development from the retributive methods of the bloody code. To evaluate the success of Pentonville, it must be measured against three factors. The first factor is the conditions for prisoners prior to Pentonville and during Pentonville. The second factor that needs to be considered is the routine the inmates faced on a day to day basis and the outcome of the rehabilitation. Prior to Pentonville, prisons were used as holding bays for those on death row and debtors, due to prisons being unfeasible for long term incarceration. Prisons were corrupt environments were ‘prisoners were in the company of criminals of every class and degree’ . Subsequently it can be claimed that having ‘passed time, he returns a greater adept in crime, with a wider acquaintance among criminals’ . During the time of the report the Lords Select Committee had promoted the silent system which had been adopted at Wakefield Goal and Coldbath fields in 1834. Whitworth Russell and William Crawford, the two of the first five appointees to the prison inspectorate favoured the separate system which would be based on solitary confinement. Their support for this method is emphasised at the start of the 1836 report which states ‘instead of seclusion and meditation…’ the report then goes on to document evidence of prisoners accessing newspapers

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