Reference no: EM133804793

Assignment:

Main idea in spanish: The U.S. women prison reformers of the 1870s and 1880s were Quakers, charity workers, and feminists from the northern states who viewed women prisoners as victims of the judges, wardens, and prison guards, who were all men (Freedman, 1982, p. 142). Rafter (1985, 1989) distinguishes between custodial institutions and reformatories. Custodial institutions are the traditional prisons designed for men, but these also held women in smaller structures attached to them. The goal was not rehabilitation but to "confine inmates at the lowest cost (a profit, if possible) until their sentences expired" (Rafter, 1989, p. 91). Women were routinely incarcerated in these men's custodial institutions in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, where they were isolated and neglected, had limited control over privacy from both male guards and male prisoners, and experienced high infant mortality rates among babies born to them while incarcerated (Rafter, 1989, p. 92).