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

The first historical study to offer an in-depth exploration of the complex relationship between the prison and mental breakdown.

Catherine Cox (Author), Hilary Marland (Author)

9781108995191, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 September 2024

316 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.426 kg

'… research-rich and meticulously documented … [the authors'] exhaustive use of prison records, convict files, laws, and legislation supports their rigorous discussion of whether prisoners should enter a place of instruction and probation or a place of oppressive punishment.' Sarah E Maier, Victorian Studies

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.

1. Introduction: Mental disorder and the modern prison in England and Ireland, 1840-1900
2. The making of the modern prison system: reformation, separation and the mind, 1840-1860
3. The prison medical officer: Deterrence, dual loyalty and the production of psychiatric expertise, 1860-1895
4. Criminal or lunatic, prisoner of patient?: Confining insanity in the late nineteenth century
5. 'He puts on symptoms of incoherence': Feigning and detecting insanity in nineteenth-century prisons
6. Conclusion: The decline of the separate system, the prisoner patient and enduring legacies
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: History of medicine [MBX]