Prisoner Health and Well-Being in Historical Perspective, 1850–1900: Exploring Experiences of Illness and Disability in the Victorian Convict System
| Published date | 01 August 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00220183241278094 |
| Author | Jo Turner,Helen Johnston |
| Date | 01 August 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Prisoner Health and Well-Being
in Historical Perspective,
1850–1900: Exploring Experiences
of Illness and Disability in the
Victorian Convict System
Jo Turner
Staffordshire University, UK
Helen Johnston
The University of Hull, UK
Abstract
Using historical and archival methodological approaches, this article provides an interdisciplinary
empirical study of health experiences of prisoners in the Victorian convict prison in England and
Wales. It explores the challenges of doing historical criminological workon prisoner health and disabil-
ity. The article examines the health of long-term prisoners, those serving sentences of penal servitude
and their interactions and treatment by the Prison Medical Officers in the system. Reflecting society
outside, the prison population was drawn from populations that had experienced childhood illness,
workplace accidents and war and therefore had to accommodate those suffering from both short-
and long-term health issues. Using historical documentation and case studies of individual prisoners,
this article highlights not only the deep scepticism the system had for those they saw as ‘malingerers’,
but also the recognition that some people could notendurethefullforceoftheprisonlabourregime.
Keywords
Disability, prisons, history
Introduction
Prisons are harsh, brutal places both culturally and architecturally. They are built essentially to hold able-
bodied, healthy people. With stairways, small cells, bunkbeds and few medical facilities, for example,
prisoners with health problems or disabilities, either mental or physical, are less able to navigate and
best manage their time in prison.
1
This situation has worsened in the second half of the 20th century,
Corresponding author:
Jo Turner, Criminology, Staffordshire University, UK.
Email: jo.turner@staffs.ac.uk
1. Moran D, Jewkes Y and Turner J. Prison design and carceral space. In Jewkes Y, Crewe B and Bennett J (eds) Handbook on
Prisons. 2nd ed. Abingdon: Routledge, 2016, pp. 114–130; Hancock P and Jewkes Y. Architectures of incarceration: The
spatial pains of imprisonment. Punishment & Society 2011; 13(5): 611–629.
Article
The Journal of Criminal Law
2024, Vol. 88(4) 222–238
© The Author(s) 2024
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00220183241278094
journals.sagepub.com/home/clj
in most countries, as people are sentenced for ever increasing periods, and more people are incarcerated
for historic offences. The prison population is, therefore, ageing, which has led to an increase in worsen-
ing health amongst those incarcerated.
2
In recognition that some prisoners will enter prison with, or
develop whilst incarcerated, medical problems, most prisons have medical facilities and personnel. In
the United Kingdom (UK), it is only recently the contemporary prison system has been forced to
respond in a more systematic manner to the needs of disabled prisoners due the Disability
Discrimination Act 1995 and the subsequent Equalities Act 2010, as a group with ‘protected character-
istics’. However, many older prisons are still in use, and these do not specifically cater for people with
bodily disabilities or ill health affecting their practical ability to navigate the physical space.
3
Given that the modern prison was conceived (philosophically and in architecture) in the early to
mid-19th century, how did prisoners with health conditions or disability fair in the past? To illuminate
the experiences of long-term prisoners with physical disabilities or ill-health, this article takes an histor-
ical view and examines how the British Victorian penal system dealt with such prisoners, with the prison
simultaneously defining our population and having an impact on this populations’health. In so doing, this
article draws on evidence from two empirical projects, the first used ‘whole-life’history methodology to
reconstruct the lives of 645 male and female convicts in the second half of the 19th century.
4
This gave us
a unique insight into a daily lives, health and experiences of hundreds of convicts. It demonstrated that
just under one-third (28%) of convicts had some kind of medical treatment during their long-term prison
sentence.
5
Whilst nearly all convicts’health, both physical and mental, was assessed and recorded as
‘good’by the medical officer on admission to prison, 95% and 97%, respectively, the records suggest
about 78% as good health, 15% as indifferent and 6% as poor. Of the 645 convicts, assessing the type
of illness or disability and proportion of time spent in the prison infirmary, we determined that about
18% of convicts experienced acute illness, 8% chronic ill health and about 7% a combination of the
two.
6
The second project focused on the specific institutional practices used in prisons and followed
up in detail the development of policies with regard to the physical health of prisoners.
7
Therefore, we
2. Ridley L. No place for old men? Meeting the needs of an ageing male prison population in England and Wales. Social Policy and
Society 2022; 21(4): 597–611.
3. For a detailed discussion of the persistence of infrastructure from this era today see: Moran D, Houlbrook M and Jewkes V. The
Persistence of the Victorian Prison. Space and Culture 2022;25(3): 364–378; Crawley E. Institutional thoughtlessness in prisons
and its impacts on the day-to-day prison lives of elderly men. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 2005;21(4): 350–363;
The New Zealand Office of the Inspectorate report. Older prisoners: the lived experience of older people in New Zealand prisons
suggests that whilst the needs of older prisoners in New Zealand and comparable jurisdictions such as the UK are being generally
met, a comprehensive Older Prisoners’Wellbeing Strategy to respond to the age-related needs of older prisoners should be devel-
oped, appropriately resourced, and implemented. 2020. https://inspectorate.correc tions.govt.nz /reports/the matic_repor ts/
older_prisoners_the_lived_experience_of_older_people_in_new_zealand_prisons.
4. The Costs of Imprisonment: A Longitudinal Study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) (ES/I028889/1.
See also, Johnston H, Godfrey BS and Cox DJ. Penal Servitude: Convicts and long-term imprisonment, 1853–1948.
McGill-Queens University Press, 2023.
5. The rate of illness or disability in the general population is not known. There was no state funded health service at this time to
record admissions, and many people with health problems or disabilities may not have accessed the largely privately funded
medical facilities and professionals.
6. Johnston et al, 2023.
7. Invalids, physical disabilities, and the modern prison, 1850–1930, funded by a British Academy Leverhulme Trust small
research grant (SRG 170334). This second research project was built on the previous ESRC funded Costs of Imprisonment
research. See also Johnston H and Turner J. Unfit for labour: Histories of disability and ill-health in the Victorian prison. In
Peacock D and MacDonald S (eds) Handbook of Disability, Crime and Justice. Abingdon: Routledge, forthcoming 2024;
Johnston H and Turner J. Disability and the Victorian Prison: Experiencing Penal Servitude. Prison Service Journal 2017;
232: 11–16. This research is about physical health and disability, but mental health in prison has been written about extensively,
notably, with regard to separate confinement, most recently by Cox C and Marland H. Disorder Contained: Mental Breakdown
and the Modern Prison in England and Ireland,1840–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022; Cox C and Marland
H. “He Must Die or Go Mad in This Place”: Prisoners, Insanity, and the Pentonville Model PrisonExperiment, 1842–52. Bulletin
of the History of Medicine 2018; 92(1): 78–109.
Turner and Johnston 223
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