The penal system during the Victorian period (1837-1901) is remembered today as extremely harsh, though it did undergo some progressive reforms during this period. British prisons at this time (called “gaols,” and pronounced as “jails”) were unsanitary and bleak. Many people incarcerated there had been sentenced to hard labor, considered a particularly severe form of penal servitude. Hard labor often involved spending many hours each day completing pointless tasks, such as turning a heavy metal handle called a crank or walking on treadmills—the point wasn’t to be productive, but to be punitively exhausted. Inmates who resisted or misbehaved were often subjected to corporal punishment or had their food taken away. In some prisons, including Reading Gaol, incarcerated men spent most of their time isolated in their cells; when they were allowed outside, they were forced to wear caps to cover their faces and were not allowed to converse with each other. These policies—known as the “Separate System” and the “Silent System,” respectively—were meant to encourage prisoners to penitently reflect upon their crimes.

There were some efforts to reform the penal system during the Victorian period, especially as progressive ideas about incarceration became more prominent. A series of acts passed by the British Parliament between 1850 and 1900 sought to improve prison life by prioritizing the rehabilitation of convicts.