What Your First 24 Hours in a Victorian Prison in Britain Were Really Like

Описание: 0:00 A name replaced by a number
1:42 The sentence and hard labour
3:06 The Black Maria and prison reception
5:56 Silence and the Separate System
8:01 The numbered cell and plank bed
12:15 Prison food and oakum picking
14:57 Hunger, sleeplessness and isolation
19:25 The treadwheel and the system’s end

I’m taking you inside the first day of a Victorian prison, where a name becomes a number and silence becomes law.

I follow the prisoner from sentencing and the Black Maria through reception, the bath, the uniform, the cell and the plank bed. I also explore the Separate System, Pentonville, prison food, oakum picking and the physical and psychological punishments built into the system.

I finish with the treadwheel, the crank and the reforms that eventually removed them from British prisons, using the rules, reports and firsthand accounts that reveal what this experience was really like.