Solitary confinement and health and other life course outcomes for convict women

Abstract

Many studies have linked sensory deprivation punishments to elevated risk of suicide and other immediate poor health outcomes, although there have been comparatively few examinations of the potential medium- and long-term impacts of being placed in a solitary cell. This article seeks to fill that gap by exploring the effects that the experience of solitary confinement and separate treatment had on the life courses of female convicts transported to Van Diemen’s Land in the period 1803–1853. As a result of recent community-based digitisation initiatives, it is possible to reconstruct female convict life courses in a way that identifies the number of sensory deprivation episodes each woman experienced and the duration of each punishment. A date and cause of death are available for nearly half of all female convicts. The article uses this information to explore the ways in which the coercive actions of the colonial state may or may not have affected long-term health outcomes. It also examines the influence of different punishment regimes on family formation, shedding light on the powerful and previously under-appreciated ways in which the policing of convicts influenced the colonial birth rate.

Keywords:

• History of health
• history of crime
• solitary confinement
• digital history
• convict history

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Trudy Cowley, Lucy Frost and the Female Convict Research Centre without whose indefatigable efforts it would have been impossible to transcribe, code and link thousands of individual life courses.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Gustarve de Beaumont and Alexis de Tocqueville, On the Penitentiary System in the United States (Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1979 [1833]), 41.

2 Francis C. Gray, Prison Discipline in America (Boston: Little, Brown, 1847), 181; Séan McConville, A History of English Prison Administration: Vol. 1 1750–1877 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), 208–9.

3 Mark Finnane, Punishment in Australian Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 44; Peter Scharff Smith, ‘Isolation and Mental Illness in Vridsløselille 1859–1873’, Scandinavian Journal of History 29, no. 1 (2004): 1–25.

4 Alison Shames, Jessica Wilcox and Rab Subramanian, Solitary Confinement: Common Misconceptions and Emerging Safe Alternatives (New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2015).

5 Peter Scharff Smith, ‘The Effects of Solitary Confinement on Prison Inmates: A Brief History and Review of the Literature’, Crime and Justice 34, no. 1 (2006): 441–528.

6 Hans Toch, Mosaic of Despair: Human Breakdowns in Prison (Lawrenceville: Princeton University Press, 1992); Craig Haney, ‘Mental Health Issues in Long-Term Solitary and “Supermax” Confinement’, Crime & Delinquency 49, no. 1 (2003): 124–56; Bruce A. Arrigo and Jennifer Leslie Bullock, ‘The Psychological Effects of Solitary Confinement on Prisoners in Supermax Units’, International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology 52, no. 6 (2008): 622–40; Jeffery L. Metzner and Jamie Fellner, ‘Solitary Confinement and Mental Illness in US Prisons: A Challenge for Medical Ethics’, Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online 38, no. 1 (2010): 104–8.

7 Fatos Kaba et al., ‘Solitary Confinement & Risk of Self-Harm’, American Journal of Public Health 104, no. 3 (2014): 442–7.

8 Henrik S. Andersen et al., ‘A Longitudinal Study of Prisoners on Remand: Repeated Measures of Psychopathology in the Initial Phase of Solitary versus Nonsolitary Confinement’, International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 26, no. 2 (2003): 165–77.

9 Rebecca Kippen and Janet McCalman, ‘Mortality Under and After Sentence of Male Convicts Transported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), 1840–1852’, History of the Family 20, no. 3 (2015): 345–65.

10 Robert Shoemaker and Richard Ward, ‘Understanding the Criminal: Record-Keeping, Statistics and the Early History of Criminology in England’, British Journal of Criminology 57, no. 6 (2017): 1442–61.

11 Kenneth Morgan, ‘The Organization of the Convict Trade to Maryland: Stevenson, Randolph and Cheston, 1768–1775’, The William and Mary Quarterly 42, no 2 (1985): 201–27.

12 Stephen Nicholas, ‘The Convict Labour Market’, in Convict Workers: Reinterpreting Australia’s Past, ed. Stephen Nicholas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 120–4.

13 David A. Roberts, ‘A Change of Place, Illegal Movement on the Bathurst Frontier, 1822–25’, Journal of Australian Colonial History 7 (2005): 97–122.

14 Hamish Maxwell-Stewart and James Bradley ‘“Behold the Man”: Power, Observation and the Tattooed Convict’, Journal of Australian Studies 12, no. 1 (1997): 74–5.

15 Arthur to Bathurst, 3 July 1825, no. 10. GO 33/1, The National Archives, UK.

16 Christine Leppard-Quinn, ‘Labelling the Transported Prostitute: An Exercise in Textual Archaeology’, Tasmanian Historical Studies 18 (2013): 35–59.

17 Richard H. Steckel, ‘The Quality of Census Data for Historical Inquiry: A Research Agenda’, Social Science History 15, no. 4 (1991): 579–99; Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, ‘The State, Convicts and Longitudinal Analysis’, Australian Historical Studies 47, no. 3 (2016): 418–9.

18 The London Magazine and Review 2 (1825), 51–2.

19 Colonel George Arthur, Evidence to the Select Committee, 27 June 1837, Report from Select Committee on Transportation (London: Henry Hooper, 1837), 279.

20 Male and Female Conduct Records, Con 31, 33, 40 and 41, Tasmanian Archives, Hobart.

21 There are two series: Conduct Records for Female Convicts arriving in the Assignment Era 1803–1843, TAHO, Con 40 (n = 6798) and Conduct Records for Female Convicts arriving in the Probation Era 1844–1853, Con 41 (n = 6617), Tasmanian Archives. Both series were imaged as a result of Australian Research Council funding and subsequently transcribed by the Female Convict Research Centre, a volunteer organisation.

22 Catherine Cox and Hilary Marland, ‘“He Must Die or Go Mad in this Place”: Prisoners, Insanity and the Pentonville Model Prison Experiment, 1842–1852’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 92, no. 1 (2018): 78–109, U. R. Q. Henriques, ‘The Rise and Decline of the Separate System of Prison Discipline’, Past and Present 54, no. 1 (1972): 61–93.

23 Report on Progress of New Building (Separate Apartments), Correspondence of Comptroller General CON 1-1-64 file 4347, Tasmanian Archives.

24 Convict Musters, HO 10/38 and 10/47-52, The National Archives, UK; Conduct Records CON 31, 32, 33, 40, 41; Death Registers, CON 63 and 64, Tasmanian Archives.

25 Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, ‘Isles of the Dead: Convict Death Rates in Comparative Perspective’, Historic Environment 24, no. 3 (2012): 26–34.

26 Mary Davis, per America, Police No. 122, Description Register Con 19-1-12; Appropriation Register Con 27-1-1; Conduct Register Con 40-1-3, Permission to Marry Con 52-1-2, 66; Surgeon’s Journal America transport AJCP Adm101/1 Reel 3187; Death Register RGD 35-1-35, 102; RGD 37-1-2 (1842, 1446); Tasmanian Archives and Hobart Town Gazette, 18 May 1858, 728.

27 Ann Pryor, per America, Police No. 80, Description Register Con 19-1-12; Appropriation Register Con 27-1-1; Conduct Register Con 40-1-7; Surgeon’s Journal America transport AJCP Adm101/1 Reel 3187; Tasmanian Archives; Registration No. 1891/1003, Births, Deaths and Marriages, Victoria.

28 Christopher Hamlin, ‘Predisposing Causes and Public Health in Early-Nineteenth-Century Medical Thought’, Social History of Medicine 5, no. 1 (1992): 57.

29 Barry Godfrey, Caroline Homer, Kris Inwood, Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, Rebecca Read and Richard Tuffin, ‘Crime, Penal Transportation and Digital Methodologies’, Journal of World History 32, no. 2 (2021): 241–60.

30 A multivariate regression model estimates the average effect a particular measure might have, at the margin, on an outcome while simultaneously taking account of the effect of other influences.

31 Hamish Maxwell-Stewart and Michael Quinlan, ‘Voting with their Feet: Absconding and Labour Exploitation in Convict Australia’, in Runaways: Workers, Mobility, and Global Capitalism, 1650–1850, eds Titas Chakraborty, Matthias van Rossum and Marcus Rediker (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019), 156–77; Hamish Maxwell-Stewart and Michael Quinlan, ‘Female Convict Labour and Absconding Rates in Colonial Australia, Tasmanian Historical Studies 22 (2017): 19–36.

32 Janet McCalman and Rebecca Kippen, ‘The Life-Course Demography of Convict Transportation to Van Diemen’s Land’, History of the Family 25, no. 3 (2020): 442.

33 ‘Determined Suicide’, Colonial Times, 25 October 1853, 3.

34 McCalman and Kippen, ‘The Life-Course Demography’, 441–2.

35 Kristin L. Rooney, ‘The Relationship between Stress and Infertility’, Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience 20, no. 1 (2018): 41–7.

36 James Dixon, The Condition and Capabilities of Van Diemen’s Land as a Place of Emigration Being the Practical Experience of Nearly Ten Years Residence (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1839), 54.

37 William D. Forsyth, Governor Arthur’s Convict System: Van Diemen’s Land 1824–36 (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1970), 205.

38 Mrs Augustus Prinsep, The Journal of a Voyage from Calcutta to Van Diemen’s Land Comprising a Description of that Colony During Six Months Residence (London: Smith Elder and Co., 1833), 113.

39 Henry Widowson, Present State of Van Diemen’s Land (London: S. Robinson and W. Joy, 1829), 56.

40 Kirsty Reid, Gender, Crime and Empire: Convicts, Settlers and the State in Early Colonial Australia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), 138.

41 Joy Damousi, Depraved and Disorderly: Female Convicts, Sexuality and Gender in Colonial Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 66–9; Lucy Frost, Abandoned Women: Scottish Convicts Exiled Beyond the Seas (Sydney: Allen and Unwin), 33–45.

42 Kris Inwood, Hamish Maxwell-Stewart and Jim Stankovich, ‘The Prison and the Colonial Family’, History of the Family 20, no. 2 (2015): 245.

43 See, for example, Richard Tuffin and Martin Gibbs, ‘Convict Landscapes: Locating Australia's Convicts, 1788–1868 – Van Diemen's Land’, University of New England dataset, Australian Research Data Commons (2020), doi:10.25952/5f449b94d3e1f.

44 See Lyndall Ryan, ‘The Governed: Convict Women in Tasmania 1803–1853’, Bulletin of the Centre for Tasmanian Historical Studies 3 (1990–91): 37–51.

45 Myles Doyle and Angella Carballedo, ‘Infertility and Mental Health’, Advances in Psychiatric Treatment 20, no. 5 (2014): 297–303.

46 Raymond Evans and William Thorpe, ‘Power, Punishment and Penal Labour: Convict Workers and Moreton Bay’, Australian Historical Studies 25, no. 98 (1992): 90–111; Kris Inwood and Hamish Maxwell-Stewart, ‘Selection Bias and Social Science History’, Social Science History 44, no. 3 (2020): 412–3.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [DP180103952].

Notes on contributors

Kris Inwood

Kris Inwood is a Professor of Economics and History at the University of Guelph, Ontario, with research interests in industrialization, inequality, health and well-being, gender and Aboriginal peoples.

Hamish Maxwell-Stewart

Hamish Maxwell-Stewart is Professor of Heritage Studies and Digital Humanities at the University of New England. He has a particular interest in the digitisation, linking and coding of historical data as well the history of industrial relations, crime and health.