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This article focuses on the treatment that women inmates received in two federal prisons in Mexico that were sites of attempts to implement prison reform: the ex-Acordada and Belén. The study analyzes key characteristics of the inmates, examines how women prisoners were included in prison regulations in general, and describes the modifications made to the areas set aside for women in those prisons after the implementation of initiatives of prison reform, especially in relation to topics like work and education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The site of St John's provides a unique insight into the internal dynamics and materiality of a nineteenth century Catholic girls' reformatory and the silent lives of the young women, both inmates and nuns, who were confined there. The organisation and material culture of the site reflects the intersection of Australian colonial, Catholic and 'middle-class' ideologies. This institution's purpose was to reform through the imparting of a Catholic hegemony of 'appropriate' female behaviour and sexuality; this hegemony was supported by enculturation, which included the altering, confining, decorating and ordering of the St John's space. The site and its assemblage, whilst small, demonstrate the framework for, and materiality of, the reformatory system that was underpinned by deep traditions of female confinement based in Catholic institutional models. Gender as a social process is key to reading and interpreting the materiality of the St John's Reformatory for girls. Gender frames, informs and contextualises the materiality of the site, its aims, its operation and thus its archaeological interpretation. Further, the ideological gender roles and regimes related through historical accounts provide the context for the embeddedness of gender in the material culture found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nineteenth-century perceptions of alcoholism were shaped implicitly by notions of gender, class and morality. From 1879, legislation advocated the institutional management of inebriates as a response to the growing problem of habitual drunkenness. Examining the methods of treating varied classes of female alcoholics in three inebriate institutions between 1876 and 1898, this article highlights how reformatory and punitive treatment models were shaped by class and gender perceptions of the alcoholic. The article questions why the application of reformatory treatment models proved problematic and analyzes the points of tension encountered in the attempts to reform a mixed class of female patients. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the creation and implementation of prison nurseries in American female prisons as of 2015, and it mentions the impacts of such nursery programs on incarcerated mothers and their infant children, as well as potential U.S. constitutional law-related challenges to prison nurseries. The Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses in the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution are examined, along with incarceration rates and the history of America's prison system.

Research conducted at the New York State Reformatory for Women at Bedford under the direction of founding superintendent Katharine Bement Davis produced some of the most influential data on prostitution in the Progressive Era. While Davis and Bedford have figured prominently in histories of the women's prison reform movement, historical studies of the social response to prostitution in the Progressive Era, and feminist biographical accounts of women in early twentieth century reform crusades, the relationship between penal reform and the changing social organization of labor has been overlooked. This paper undertakes a critical reexamination of the Bedford data, demonstrating that while Davis advocated a social scientific approach to reform, she systematically displaced the significance of structural factors at two crucial levels: her studies of inmates and her own philosophy and practice of reform. Studies of inmates discounted the role of economic factors for women's entry into prostitution in favor of explanations that emphasized familial and personal weakness. The institutionalization, training, and parole of inmates functioned not simply to place inmates in domestic service but to effectively disqualify them from other sources of respectable employment. Viewed through the lens of a social organization of labor perspective, a previously neglected dimension of the logic and practice of reform is illuminated. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses the life and imprisonment of the largely unknown middle-class artist and British suffrage activist Katie Gliddon and analyzes her extensive prison diary, secretly written and drawn in her copy of The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley at London's Holloway Prison in March and April 1912. By creating a platform for the voices of ‘ordinary’ prisoners and by opening up a space for a transgressive gaze between suffragettes, ‘ordinary’ prisoners and female officers, Gliddon's writings allow us to complicate our understanding of cross-class relations within the women's suffrage campaign and in women's prisons more generally speaking. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article looks at the women prisoners in Queensland's Toowoomba Gaol during the late 19th century. It focuses on the prison's conditions and the various reactions of the women such as smuggling of supplies, defiance of authority, and engaging in emotional/sexual relationships. It also discusses the paradoxical nature of the prisons which were meant to house criminal women, but they allowed relationships to form among the women, thus spreading corruption.

An introduction is presented in which the author discusses various articles within the issue on topics including the social impact on exiled Spanish children during the Spanish Civil War, an examination of Spanish Civil War fiction and prison conditions inside Francoist women's prisons.

This article will explore 'maternalistic' forms of governance in a 19th century female reformatory. The ideological foundations and operational practices of the reformatory movement have predominantly been analysed within a theoretical framework that prioritises their paternalistic construction. Yet overwhelmingly it was female matrons who took daily custody of these institutions. I argue here that an examination of this female presence disrupts the notion of paternalistic supremacy with regard to institutional power relations. However, this is not to suggest the complete elimination of paternalistic primacy. Rather, the paper will highlight how the matrons attempted to negotiate and manage the complex relations that emerged for themselves in their roles as both 'governing' and 'governed' women. The paucity and nature of the data available poses particular methodological issues and therefore the paper will also advocate a more 'imaginative' contextualised approach which embraces the 'art' as well as the 'science' of archival excavation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the imprisonment of women during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco in Spain immediately following the civil war from 1939-1943. The author comments on the Las Oblatas prison in the the region of Tarragona and describes the political repression and violence against republican women at the time. The impact on the jailed women's families, particularly their children, is examined and the poor living conditions in the prison are explored. An analysis of the rise of anti-Franco resistance and the participation of women is provided.

This article discusses the imprisonment of women during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco in Spain from 1939-1975. The author comments on the prisons in the region of Segovia and describes the political repression and violence against republican women at the time. The impact on the jailed women's families, particularly their children, is examined and the poor living conditions in the prisons are explored. An analysis of the rise of anti-Franco resistance and the participation of women is provided.

This article discusses the transformation of the Saturrarán Seminary buildings into the Prisón Central de Mujeres (Central Prison for Women) in 1937 in País Vasco, Spain. The author comments on the poor living conditions in these jails, which resulted in a typhus epidemic in 1940. He also describes the imprisonment of both women and children who opposed the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. The political persecution and violence inflicted on the opposition at the time is explored and historical records from the period are cited.

Throughout transformations and legal changes in juvenile justice, the character and constitution of the female juvenile offender population has changed very little, with girls infrequently charged with serious law violations and commonly judged in terms of their moral welfare and sexual behavior. This Article examines the treatment of girls' sexuality in the justice system, from the early reformatories to the contemporary era. It looks at how juvenile courts and girls' correctional institutions have traditionally constructed and controlled girls ' sexual choices, sexual abuse histories, identities, and orientation. Specifically, it shows how, over the past one hundred years, legal actors and correctional practitioners have consistently focused on girls ' sexuality and identified similar causes for girls' sexual deviance (disrupted families, economic deprivation, educational and vocational deficits, and unhealthy relationships with older men), but have framed such causes, as well as their responses, differently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information about the task of compiling historical records kept on women in Australia. It discusses which women the author chose to include such as those from the Female Factory women's prisons, employed women, and charitable volunteers, and the women excluded such as those from prominent families, women writers, or upper class women.