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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 1150: ACT FOR THE BETTER ORDERING OF PRISONS.
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

ACT FOR THE BETTER ORDERING OF PRISONS.

During this session an act was passed for the “better ordering of prisons.” By this act it was provided that prisoners might be separately confined, though that separate confinement should not be deemed solitary confinement. No cell was to be used for the separate confinement of any prisoner which was not of such a size, and lighted, warmed, and ventilated in such a manner as might be required by a due regard to health, and which did not furnish the means of enabling the prisoner to communicate at any time with an officer of the prison. Every prisoner so confined was to have the means of taking air and exercise at such times as should be deemed necessary by the surgeon, and was to be furnished with the means of moral and religious instruction, and with suitable books, as well as with labour or employment. All prisoners were to be divided into the following classes: namely, debtors in those prisons in which debtors might be lawfully confined; prisoners committed for trial; prisoners convicted and sentenced to hard labour; prisoners convicted and not sentenced to hard labour; and prisoners not included in either of the foregoing classes.