Dorathea Dix's Experience In Asylums And Prisons In The 1800s
Caged. Chained. Tortured. These three words describe what prisons had to experience in Asylums and Prisons in the 1800s. The prisoners experienced horrible treatment and had to endure so much pain and agony like forced heavy labor, the electric chair, and sometimes even execution. Due to these inhumane conditions of asylums and prisons, reform was needed in the 1800s.
Prisoners were treated with inhumane conditions and were treated very poorly, they had to suffer in these unhealthy conditions in prisons and asylums. The prisoners were kept in tiny cells and given nothing to do but lose their minds if kept there long enough. They were chained and caged regularly in cellars and closets that left bruises and marks on their bodies. The conditions were often described and unhealthy, unsanitary, and overcrowded. Inmates were often left naked and physically abused and left in horror. The inhumane conditions usually lead to inmates death, attempted suicide or becoming physically and mentally ill.
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Dorathea Dix is one leader that started to make progress in the changes in the prisons creating the reforms. She started to teach Sunday school at a jail leading to more advancements in prison reforms and by encouraging others to join the movement in doing so. Dorothea saw how they were treating the mentally ill as if they were nothing more than animals, she saw what they would do to them. Her and other reformers believed that the mentally ill should get treatment to help them and not
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1025 Words | 5 PagesDorothea Dix developed the reform of prisons and the treatment of people with mental illness. Her attempts led to corrections in state prison systems and the creation of public institutions and hospitals for the mentally ill. Many prisoners were locked in cages and bound in cages, children accused of minor thefts were jailed with adult criminals, Dix was horrified. Dix gathered information about the horrors she had seen for two years. She prepared a detailed report for the Massachusetts state legislature.
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1314 Words | 6 PagesThis is when she wrote most of her books, staying up late to do so. Dix started the Asylum Movement, a reformation that led to the mentally ill and prisoners being given humane conditions to live in. She was physically ill most of her life, and it is suspected she suffered from depression and occasionally mental breakdowns, which may have encouraged her quest for reformation even more. Dorothea Dix represents conflict because she wrote books for the “Asylum Movement,” taught the mentally ill and prisoners, and caused the reformation of hundreds of hospitals. Dix was the eldest child and only daughter of Joseph Dix and Mary Bigelow.
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1193 Words | 5 PagesThe harshest punishments they did have were a ball and chain if they tried to escape and “The Dark Cell” for the harshest punishment. The dark cell was basically a cave dug into the ground with a 15 by 15 foot cage where the prisoner would be placed stripped to their underwear with no light and only bread and
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599 Words | 3 PagesDorothea quickly realized the horrible treatment the prisoners received especially those with mental illness whose cells had no heat. She quickly went to court and soon assured to provide heat for the prisoners along with other improvements. Dorothea founded more than 30 hospitals for the mentally ill.(Bio.com.) She changed the idea that mentally ill people cannot be helped or cured to that with treatment their mental state will become normal. She also was a committed critic of cruel and neglectful practices toward the mentally ill such as caging, incarceration without clothing, physical and sexual abuse from their keepers, and painful physical restraint such as chains.(Biography
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939 Words | 4 Pages“…her changes are still being felt today with the way mental patients are treated. This one woman accomplished much for humanity within her lifespan.” Dorothea Dix was a great woman activist in history who fought for a great cause. Her fight for Prison reform and the fair treatment of the mentally ill is a great achievement because of the impact it has left on modern day Legal System. She felt the need to bring this topic of Prison Reform to light because of the neglect it faced.
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