Month: May 2015

Prison Memoir: Jabez Spencer Balfour

Posted on by Prison Voices NA

London Newspaper, 1894

London Newspaper, 1894

Prison memoirs are a very reliable source which offers insights into an individuals prison experience. In this blog I will have a look at Jabez Spencer Balfour’s account and what it may reveal about his time in prison. Balfour was a well-known business man who was sentenced to more than ten years in prison due to fraud and escaping to Argentina. His memoir was published in 1907: My Prison Life. He focuses on the food and lack of diet the prisons offer, labour and other elements he experienced in prison. The memoir highlights in chapter 15 the dietary issues in prisons. Balfour states that ‘the taxpayer who maintains the prisoner…has a right to be considered’. Here he might be digging into the fact that he once, a rich business man, was paying taxes for the upkeep of prisoners and such treatment is abysmal. Balfour criticises the timings in which they are fed: ‘breakfast at half-past five in the morning’ and ‘supper at half-past five in the evening’ he also creates a food diary where he tells his audience what he was fed. Balfour continues for around 5 pages discussing the small meals in detail with his sarcastic opinions.

http://archive.org/stream/myprisonlife00balfgoog#page/n272/mode/2up

Reformation Prison

Posted on by Prison Voices NA

USE NIE

In reformed prisons during the 19th Century this kind of labour was common. Houses of Correction such Coldbath Fields practised separate confinement and the silent system. In this image we can see the use of the treadmill and the silent system: Coldbath Fields is practising both separate confinement and silent system whilst undertaking exercise. The inmates are seen to be regimented by the prison wardens who are dressed differently with weapons such as batons attached to their waist. They are forced to look to the ground and not make any form of contact with any other inmate, removing any sort of agency they may have had previously. The effectiveness of hard labour was to act as a deterrent, once released the inmates would not want to go back. This is a different story in prisons such as Newgate Gaol where inmates had an enjoyable time without much regulation or rules. Prisoners would be allowed constant visitation and acts such as drinking and gambling would be common.

Hard labour was made justified by saying that laziness was a sin against God. Other hard labour such as sewing and shoemaking would also be forced in silence and these skills would be taught so that upon release the inmate had learnt something they could practise after.