Editing Prison reform (section)

=====18th century=====
During the eighteenth century, British justice used a variety of measures to punish criminals, including fines, the pillory and whipping. Transportation to the American colonies was used until 1776. The death penalty could be imposed for many offenses.{{Citation needed|date=March 2019}}

[[John Howard (prison reformer)|John Howard]]'s book,  ''The State of the Prisons'' was published in 1777.<ref>{{citation |title=The State of the Prisons in England and Wales with an account of some foreign prisons|author=John Howard|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4EhNAAAAYAAJ|year=1777}}</ref> He was particularly appalled to discover prisoners who had been acquitted but were still confined because they could not pay the jailer's fees. He proposed that each prisoner should be in a separate cell with separate sections for women felons, men felons, young offenders and debtors. The prison reform charity [[Howard League for Penal Reform]] takes its name from John Howard.

The [[Penitentiary Act 1779]] ([[19 Geo. 3]]. c. 74) which passed following his agitation introduced solitary confinement, religious instruction and a labor regime and proposed two state penitentiaries, one for men and one for women. These were never built due to disagreements in the committee and pressures from wars with France and jails remained a local responsibility. But other measures passed in the next few years provided magistrates with the powers to implement many of these reforms and eventually in 1815 jail fees were abolished.

Quakers such as [[Elizabeth Fry]] continued to publicize the dire state of prisons as did [[Charles Dickens]] in his novels ''[[David Copperfield (novel)|David Copperfield]]'' and ''[[Little Dorrit (novel)|Little Dorrit]]'' about the [[Marshalsea]]. [[Samuel Romilly]] managed to repeal the death penalty for theft in 1806, but repealing it for other similar offences brought in a political element that had previously been absent. The Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline, founded in 1816, supported both the [[Panopticon]] for the design of prisons and the use of the [[treadwheel]] as a means of hard labor. By 1824, 54 prisons had adopted this means of discipline.<ref>{{harvnb|Morris|Rothman|1995|p=97}}</ref> Robert Peel's [[Gaols Act 1823]] ([[4 Geo. 4]]. c. 64) attempted to impose uniformity in the country but local prisons remained under the control of magistrates until the [[Prison Act 1877]] ([[40 & 41 Vict.]] c. 21).