A Want of Order and Good Discipline: Rules, Discretion and the Victorian Prison

In the nineteenth century, prison became the dominant form of punishment for criminals, as capital and corporal measures were phased out and crime began to be thought of as a national, rather than a local, problem that demanded a national solution. Richard Ireland’s detailed investigation into the operation of a local Welsh jail between 1840 and 1877 is a revealing account of the relationship between the jail, its staff and prisoners, and the community as well as a thorough exploration of the reasons for and resistances to the growth of the penal system.