| During the nineteenth century a number of 'special cases' were identified within the English pris. on system. These 'special cases' included juveniles, drunkards. 'imbeciles', vagrants and, of. course, women. Due to the perceived fragility of their morality and their perceived susceptibility to (positive and negative) external influence, women were deemed to be particularly unsuitable for the, often brutal, prison regimes. As a result a plethora of non-penal, semi-incarcerative institutions (such as homes, refuges and reformatories) were developed to cater for the deviant female. These institutions straddled the boundary between 'custody' and community' but, for the purposes of reforming and normalising recalcitrant women, utilised methods of discipline and control from both. It is the intention of this paper to examine the experiences of women within these 'semipenal' (Weiner, I cl 1-10) institutions and the discourses used to categorisc and define than. In addition it will be argued that the 'semipenal' institution still exists in the form of the modern day probation hostel for women. These institutions will therefore be critically examined with the aim of identifying some ideological and practical themes of continuity between the nineteenth century reformatory and the twentieth century hostel. |
Updated 05/20/2006