Disorder Contained: Mental Breakdown and the Modern Prison in England and Ireland, 1840 – 1900

By: Catherine Cox and Hilary Marland

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Synopsis: Disorder Contained is the first historical account of the complex relationship between prison discipline and mental breakdown in England and Ireland. Between 1840 and 1900 the expansion of the modern prison system coincided with increased rates of mental disorder among prisoners, exacerbated by the introduction of regimes of isolation, deprivation and hard labour. Drawing on a range of archival and printed sources, the authors explore the links between different prison regimes and mental distress, examining the challenges faced by prison medical officers dealing with mental disorder within a system that stressed discipline and punishment and prisoners' own experiences of mental illness. The book investigates medical officers' approaches to the identification, definition, management and categorisation of mental disorder in prisons, and varied, often gendered, responses to mental breakdown among inmates. The authors also reflect on the persistence of systems of punishment that often aggravate rather than alleviate mental illness in the criminal justice system up to the current day. This title is also available as Open Access.