After visiting almost every public and private prison in the United States, Dorothea Dix found that they were unsanitary and inhumane. At the time, prisons were unregulated and unhygienic, as criminals were imprisoned directly next to mentally ill people. Dix presented her reports, accounts of prisoners being flogged, chained, starved, left naked, and physically and sexually abused, to the legislature of Massachusetts. Her actions influenced a movement to improve prison conditions for both the imprisoned as well as the insane. Dix moved on to accomplish similar feats in New York and Rhode Island, as well as expanding her efforts to Europe (A&E, 2015, Dorothea Dix).
Dix was the leader in the movement that led to the establishment of more than
Dorthea Dix, a well-known name in the psychology field, was a major contributor to improving the quality of life for those that were in institutions. She was a volunteer at a hospital during the civil war and realized the horrendous treatment to the patients.
Jennie Wade was the only civilian to die in the battle of Gettysburg. Jennie Wade was born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and died there just twenty short years later. The battle of Gettysburg was then known as one of the bloodiest battles in the American civil war. This caused a single civilian to lose their life, Jennie Wade was that person to die at Gettysburg. Many other civilians died in the war itself, but only she died at Gettysburg.
Dorothea noticed that the mentally ill were placed in prisons because people didn’t know what else to do with them. Her early family life, which consisted of an abusive alcoholic dad and a mother that was not in good mental health, was very troubling and led to Dorothea’s guardianship of her brothers. Dorothea became a teacher and then centered her life on prison reform and the creation of asylums and homes for the mentally
Once in a while a truly exceptional person has made a mark on the growth of mankind. Dorothea Dix was an exceptional woman. She wrote children’s books, she was a school teacher, and she helped reform in prisons. Some of her most notable work was in the field of making mental health institutions a better place for the patients that lived in them. Dorothea Dix gave a great deal to humanity and her achievements are still being felt today, especially in the treatment of those with mental disabilities. Dix started out though with very humble beginnings.
This mistreatment includes the use of restraints, poor health conditions, sexual abuse by corrections officers and the isolation of women contained in high security units. Perhaps the most alarming part of this report was that the United States agreed to an international treaty that was agreed upon by one hundred and forty-five countries that are currently legally bound by said treaty, but only as far as what was already stated in the Constitution and not anymore than that. Women in American prisons are victims of rape and various forms of sexual abuse by prison staff. Also, as stated in Jill 's story that sick or pregnant women are unduly and unjustly required by law to be bound in chains while giving birth for the sake of safety. This bondage of pregnant women is an utter violation of the basic human rights of women that are incarcerated. The final topic discussed in this report was the fact that most prisons, more specifically, maximum security prisons are developed and cater to men and their gender specific problems. Only recently has this begin to improve but the conditions are still outrageous and some of the high risk units within the prisons violate the basic right to privacy and dignity because they allow male guards to see these females at all times without any privacy. The conditions talked about in Prison Life
The prison reform started January 1st 1870 and ended December 31st 1970. This reform bettered the prison system and changed prison and mental institutions not only in America but as well as Europe. Some successes that came from this reform was the widespread establishment of mental institutions, increased attention to prisoner’s rights, redefining prison procedure, and the attempt to cure mental illness although Dorothea Dix’s federal bill did fail. This reform swept the country and it all begin with Dorothea Dix thanks to her the prison system was changed
Interior Decorators such as Elsie de Wolfe, Eleanor McMillen Brown, and Dorothy Draper helped to pave the way for the Interior Design profession today. Their influential decisions to stray away from the Victorian style of design helped guide both the interior decorating profession, as well as architects who no longer wanted to design in the bulky and cluttered Victorian Style.
14 Nicole Hahn Rafter, Partial Justice: Women in State Prisons 1800-1935 (Boston: New England University Press, 1985)
Thousands of people statewide are in prisons, all for different reasons. However, the amount of mental illness within prisons seems to go unaddressed and ignored throughout the country. This is a serious problem, and the therapy/rehabilitation that prison systems have do not always help those who are mentally ill. Prison involvement itself can contribute to increased suicide (Hills, Holly). One ‘therapy’ that has increased throughout the years has been the use of solitary confinement, which has many negative effects on the inmates.
Erin G., 2010, A Woman Doing Life: Notes from a Prison for Women: The Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. vi, 202, Vol. 8(2)175.
In the history of the American penitentiary, women are, for the most part, invisible. The early history of women’s prisons as well as theories about female criminality did not factor into the discussion. In comparison, there is a large amount of scholarship and literature on male prisons and prisoners of that same time. This paper is an attempt to fill that gap. With Women, Prison, & Crime, Women in Prison and Their Sister’s Keepers by Jocelyn Byrne, Cyndi Banks and Estelle Freedman, respectively, this paper attempts to outline the history of women’s prisons and the main theories about female prisoners from 1840-1930. In analyzing these two concepts in conjunction with the status of women in society at those particular times, a pattern emerges. Theories about female criminals, and the subsequent approaches created to control them, are a direct reflections of society’s belief that a woman’s place is in the domestic sphere. Thus, from 1815-1930, society only considered women criminal when they left that sphere and all reformatory efforts went towards their return.
Like the majority of the world, people in the United States did not support the mental institutions necessary for the insane to be properly cared for. For example, the federal government of the United States wanted no part in funding and supporting these institutions, and left that power to the states. The state governments often times neglected the asylums and would not fund them, leaving the unfunded asylums without resources or money. Dorothea Dix, a reformer of the 1800s, saw what the state and federal governments were doing to these poor mentally ill people and made several movements to improve living conditions and better the funding towards maintenance and treatment in these mental institutions. After she showed the citizens of the United States the torture they were putting the mentally ill through, large protests against the government spread nationwide. The government hea...
Many citizens in the general public would consider the living conditions of correctional facilities to be either too luxurious or too savage. Few would relatively contemplate the conditions to be in between assumptions. For an example in the article, Ross presents the myth of most convicts being provided sufficient health care benefits. However, due to the limitations of
The evolution of Bauhaus has been a significant impact to the design world, as it marks the infamous modern characteristics that remain imperative as a distinct design language; currently influencing designers even till this day. Including the young designer, Marianne Brandt, who was one of the students who successfully merged the two worlds of industry and design together with her work from Weimar and Dessau Bauhaus. Brandt, a German designer, was traditionally trained as a formal painter in the Grand Ducal College of Arts. While experiencing a Bauhaus exhibition in Germany, she was highly enthralled by the majority of the work that she was able to relinquish her earlier artistic philosophies, as well as her earlier expressionistic paintings in order to perpetually alter her design perspective. Hence, Brandt began her journey as a student in the metal workshop in Weimar Bauhaus under Laszlo Moholy-Nagy in 1923. Although she
Elizabeth Fry worked with the Newgate prison in London. Thanks to Fry and many other women reformers in America aided to the significant changes in the incarceration of women, which lead to the development of separate institutions for women. The Indiana Women’s Prison was known for being the first stand-alone and maximum-security prison for women in the United States. When it first opened in 1873 the facility housed about 16 women, then by the year 1940, 23 other states opened up facility specifically for women. During the 20th century two types of prisons were being used to house women offenders; reformatories and custodial institutions. Reformatory was a new concept in incarceration, these institutions were used to rehabilitate women, while custodial institutions were designed after male institutions, and these types were used to house women offenders who committed felony acts and property-related crimes. From being housed in an attic to be placed in a facility under the control of men to final gaining their own facility women that are incarcerated have had a tough