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Between 1842 and 1877, 90 prisons were built or extended costing millions of pounds. Many new prisons were built in the mid-19th century that were secure, and allowed for prisoners to have individual cells. In these prisons two different regimes were used to try to reform prisoners. Both regimes were harsh.

The separate system

The Prison Act of 1839 preferred the new prisons to adopt the separate system. In separate system prisons, prisoners were isolated from each other, kept alone in cells for weeks and worked on machines such as the crank.

Prison chaplains would try to encourage them to live a more Christian crime-free life. The belief was that with a lot of time alone, a prisoner would reflect on his crime and be reformed.

If prisoners left their cells, they were made to wear a mask and were kept silent. At exercise time, each prisoner held on to rope 4.5 metres apart from the next prisoner so they were too far apart to talk.

The silent system

In silent system prisons, inmates were forced to do boring, repetitive tasks such as passing a heavy cannon ball, in complete silence. They slept on hard beds and ate basic food like bread and drank water.

By the end of the 19th century, neither the separate or silent systems were working. The suicide rate was high and there was little evidence that criminals were actually reformed.

The 1865 Prisons Act stated that prisons should be hard labour, hard fare and hard board. This shows a return to the attitude of strict punishment rather than the attempts to reform prisoners through separation or silence.