How Did The Boston Prison Asylum Reform

Prison/Asylum Reform (through 1865) The Prison/Asylum movement was established to improve conditions of the mentally ill in prisons. At that time, there were cruel and negligent practices in place for the incarcerated mentally ill. There were few people who cared for them and most were forgotten. Some of the awful things done to the prisoners were caging the prisoners, confinement deprived of clothing, and painful bodily restraint. When the movement began, there were a lot of confined individuals who wouldn’t be in prison today let alone imprisoned together with hardened criminals. Children, women, men, and the mentally ill were all thrown together with the most dangerous of society. There was no treatment for mental illness. The so-called
The Boston Prison Discipline Society was founded by Dwight in 1825. Their goal was to improve the quality of life for prisoners. The society advocated publicly for better prison and jail conditions. The society also advocated for hospitals for mentally ill prisoners. The society collected facts and statistics on prisons. They would visit them personally to obtain this informational data. Some of the goals of the society was for the prisoners to have separated cells at nighttime, the availability of bibles which were accessible for prisoners to read, jailers to have respect for the prisoners, prisoners to have jobs within the prison, and for the mentally ill, violent offenders, children, and women to be separated. They wanted programs in place for discharged prisoners to be assimilated back into mainstream society. The society wanted female guards to be available for female prisoners. The Society also discussed the needs of prisoners and criminals of color. The Massachusetts legislature appointed a committee in 1827 to examine the condition of state jails because of the work of Dwight. The Massachusetts general courts approved a bill for the construction of a state hospital for the mentally ill. This hospital, which was designed to hold up to 120 patients, opened in 1833. When it opened, more than half of the patients came directly from jails, almshouses, and
These most unfortunate beings have claims, those claims which bitter misery and adversity creates, and which it is your solemn obligation as citizens and legislators to cancel. To this end, as the advocate of those who are disqualified by a terrible malady, from pleading their own cause, I ask you to provide for the immediate establishment of a State Hospital for the Insane.”
Dix developed a campaign that focused national attention on the plight of the mentally ill in jails and prisons. She was directly responsible for the development of 5 hospitals for the insane in America and more than 30 hospitals worldwide.
Dr. John Galt was the first physician to write an article on the subject of bibliotherapy. He was also the superintendent of Eastern Lunatic Asylum. He believed that a library in a mental hospital was its own sort of medicine for the mentally ill. He compared it to being its own type of pharmacy. He advocated for reading materials to be available in asylums in the United States. Other changes he advocated for in asylum reform were the use of drugs, talk therapy, and advocating outplacement rather than lifelong stays. One of his major accomplishments was that, by the middle of the 19th century, every major mental hospital had a