Article ID: CBB806506707

‘Close confinement tells very much upon a man’: Prison Memoirs, Insanity and the Late Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Prison (2019)

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This article explores prisoners’ observations of mental illness in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British prisons, recorded in memoirs published following their release. The discipline of separate confinement was lauded for its potential to improve prisoners’ minds, inducing reflection and reform, when it was introduced in the 1840s, but in practice led to high levels of mental breakdown. In order to maintain the integrity of the prison system, the prison authorities played down incidences of insanity, while prison chaplains lauded the beneficent influence of cellular isolation. In contrast, as this article demonstrates, prisoners’ memoirs offer insights into the prevalence of mental illness in prison, and its poor management, as well as inmates’ efforts to manage mental distress. As the prison system became more closed, uniform and penal after the 1860s, the volume of such publications increased. Oscar Wilde’s evocative prison writings have attracted considerable attention, but he was only one of many prison authors criticizing the penal system and decrying the damage it inflicted on the mind. Exploration of prison memoirs, it is argued, enhances our understanding of experiences of mental disorder in the underexplored context of the prison, highlighting the prisoners’ voice, agency and advocacy of reform.

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Authors & Contributors
Edwards, Ryan Christopher
Peschier, Diana
Crook, Sarah
Schöhl, Stephanie
Hatch, Anthony Ryan
Dahl, Hilde
Concepts
Mental disorders and diseases
Psychiatry
Prisoners
Prisons
Medicine and society
Psychiatric hospitals
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
20th century
21st century
20th century, late
18th century
Places
Great Britain
Argentina
United States
Australia
Ushuaia (Argentina)
New South Wales (Australia)
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