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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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prison conditions
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Until the late 18C all prisons were chaotic and insanitary places, with both sexes thrown together and the comforts of the inmates depending entirely on how much they could pay the warders. Notorious examples in London were the *Fleet, the *Marshalsea and *Newgate. Conditions began to improve through the work of reformers such as John *Howard and Elizabeth *Fry. Most 19C prisons were custom-built, based on contemporary theories both of security and correction.
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Jeremy *Bentham published a prison design which he called the 'panopticon', in which prisoners in separate cells on different landings could all be watched from a central point. Modified versions of this idea were put into practice in many Victorian prisons, starting with London's Pentonville in 1842.
A large number of Britain's prisons survive from the 19C, when most of them were designed for fewer inmates than they now contain.
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