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The Inebriate Act passed in 1898 enabled local authorities to set up State and Certified Reformatories to treat habitual drunkards over a two to three year period as an alternative to a short prison sentence. A large proportion of offenders sentenced under this Act were women. This development has been a somewhat neglected area of social policy, perhaps because it was a short-lived experiment and few local authorities chose to take up the option; although institutional treatment was enthusiastically supported by members of the Society for the Study of Inebriety who campaigned tirelessly to extend the powers of the Act. This legislation is an interesting subject both because of the regimes that were developed to treat inebriety and also because it was one of the few attempts that were actually put into practice to impose an institutional solution on the problem of the 'undeserving' poor. This paper looks at the methods of treatment to be found in the reformatories and the way in which the campaign was proselytised in the Society's journal. We examine the records of one female reformatory run by the London County Council in an attempt to illustrate the characteristics and social backgrounds of women found in the reformatories. Finally, we make some tentative suggestions which might account for the fact that, although more men than women were prosecuted under the Act, the institutional solution was used predominantly for women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]