Reformatory or prison like stories

imreadonly2 I am familiar with the movie Nightmare in Badham County. It's actually about two college girls traveling cross country to get to, I believe UCLA in the fall. They end up in a southern work farm for females after getting put in on some made up charges. There is one scene in the movie where one of the inmates, played by a gal that appeared in several B movies of the time, (mid 70's) is stripped completely and given three strokes across the bare buttocks with a female guard's prison strap. The whole movie can be viewed for free on you tube.

In keeping with Imreadonly2's suggestions, here's an idea that I've been able to find time (and expand the idea to a full plot) is The Contagious Diseases Acts.

That's that? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contagious_Diseases_Acts has all the details, but basically in Victorian England they wanted to halt the spread of VD. This law allowed the authorities to "inspect" suspected prostitutes.

to quote:
The legislation allowed police officers to arrest women suspected of being prostitutes in certain ports and army towns. The women were then subjected to compulsory checks for venereal disease. If a woman was declared to be infected, she would be confined in what was known as a lock hospital until she recovered or her sentence finished. The original act only applied to a few selected naval ports and army towns, but by 1869 the acts had been extended to cover eighteen "subjected districts".

The Act of 1864 stated that women found to be infected could be interned in locked hospitals for up to three months, a period gradually extended to one year with the 1869 Act. These measures were justified by medical and military officials as the most effective method to shield men from venereal disease. Because military men were often unmarried and homosexuality was criminal, prostitution was considered a necessary evil. However, no provision was made for the examination of prostitutes' clientele, which became one of the many points of contention in a campaign to repeal the Acts.
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If a single woman (that is, one without a male escort) stopped a hotel she could be suspected of being a prostitute and subject to "inspection" by male officials. Nor was there any system to appeal.

When I saw that I started thinking of a woman of quality travelling alone (perhaps her maid is ill?) and running afoul of this law. Maybe there's an inheritance involved? A wicked cousin or brother-in-law behind the scenes? And once the woman is confined, well the reformatory side practically writes itself.

I've been thinking about this plot line on and for about a decade and haven't found a story - and I'd love to see someone write it.

I picture a dozen gentlemen, enjoying brandy and cigars after dinner at one of London's finest gentleman clubs. "Between the labor unions, the political reformers, and the student protests against every bloody thing that's good or wholesome, England is going to hell in a hand basket, gentlemen!"

The subject of women's rights comes up = "the worst contagion of the lot!" - and it's noted that the wives and daughters who haven't already joined the movement have at least not objected to it.

"Perhaps an example should be made. If we arrest a few of our finer ladies under the Contagious Diseases Act and place them under reformatory discipline for a few months while we "await test results" it would be a splendid tonic for the others."

Lord Watcher related how his wife has been complaining about the fun he has with the various serving girls he thrashes, "as if there's anything wrong with that!" Lord GoodGulf's niece Emily refuses to pick out the man he selected for her and instead "cavorting with the gardener!" And Lady Margaret has actually put in an application for law school. Outrageous.

Plans are made and Judge Stricthand agrees to have his clerk prepare the papers first thing in the morning. And so the story is set in motion...

Ah, but simplicity of the law means that there doesn't have to a test. Just a man doing an inspection for the visible signs of VD. Once the official claims to have seen that the woman is confined for medical reasons.

The story could end with a doctor declaring that they are no longer infectious and the girl is free to go. Of course if they were never infected in the first place that could happen anytime that they please their masters enough.

Goodgulf has some stories in that vein, as do DJ Black, Dr Keate and Daria Little

I ran across a true story that took place in Arkansas in the 1930s. The story involved a lady by the name of Helen Ruth Spence, who according to reports was quite good looking and somewhat of a media darling for that time. In 1931, in an open courtroom, she shot and killed a man who was on trail for murdering her father just as the jury was about to announce the verdict. She was convicted of man slaughter in 1932, however, she was paroled in 1933 due to public sympathy. Then later that same year she was arrested again after she confessed to another previous murder of a man who had been harassing her and making unwanted advances. She was sentenced to 10 years hard labor and while serving time at the Women's State Prison Farm, she attempted several escapes. She was caught each time and her punishment was to be stripped naked, bent over a wooden barrel and given 20 strokes on her bare bottom with a prison leather strap known as "the blacksnake." She escaped yet again from a specially made cage, but this time she was fatally shot by a prison trusty who found her waking down a country road. There was some talk at one time of them making a movie about her life story. It would have been interesting to see how Hollywood would have addressed the prison strappings. But here's a link to her "story."

http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=5376

With the exception of the "shot while escaping" angle, that could be an topic story here.
- repeatedly subjected to "stripping a prisoner naked and placing the prisoner over a wooden barrel to be whipped"
- round-the-clock series of "high enemas with a colon tube," followed by repeated douches and alternating doses of morphine - a pattern of treatment that was, even by the standards of the time, excessive and which was already out of fashion. Even when her fever dropped below ninety-nine degrees, this ordeal continued for days.
- prison records include a parole document signed by wealthy landowner .., who served during the 1930s as president of the Lonoke County school board; he put up $1,000 for Spence's parole. Residents of the area surrounding the site of Arkansas's women's prison note a historical practice of "debt peonage," in which farmers and plantation owners could acquire a female prisoner.
- she was kept in a specially constructed "cage-like cell.

If her death (which resulted in a murder charge for the person who shot her and an accessory to murder for someone who may have allowed her to escape) had been faked her life would make a great reformatory / prison story.

The "debt / peonage" angle is an interesting one and could be turned into another story. The Constitution contains an interesting loophole.

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.[i][/i]


COTTON BLOSSOM A Harvard Professor who specializes in studying the economics of Antebellum slavery arranges to have herself arrested in Calhoun Parish and taken to the Calhoun Parish Prison Farm. One day the girls are lined up after the showers for the local landowners to give them a "once-over" and then the girls are auctioned off to work off their sentences on the various plantations, the main difference being their sentences are auctioned off rather than the girls themselves and not all the girls are black. Our Harvard Professor ends up barefoot and shackled in the field on the Cotton Blossom Plantation, where the overseers use the "blacksnake" on girls who don't meet quota and take their pleasure with girls who catch their eye. Our Professors discovers a great deal about the economics of antebellum slavery, particularly when her education earns her a chance to help keep the master's books in "the big house" as well as warm her master's bed.

It's not really a reformatory or prison story, but let me suggest my story "Judicial Snafu", which is about a woman's unfortunate encounter with judicial CP at an "outpatient" punishment center.

There was actually a play about Helen Spence. It was called Helen of the White River and was in three acts. There were only a couple of vague references to the strappings at the Pea Farm, which is what she called the prison. Here are the only references I remember. Needless to say, I would have written a much different script!

In Act I Scene 2, she arrives at prison as a celebrity and is being processed by Miz Brockman, the head matron who wields the blacksnake and makes a reference to the basement where is the strappings take place.

Miz Brockman: It's one of the finest structures in the county. We have the only telephone for miles. But you won't be making any calls. And believe me, the only part of that house you will ever see is the basement, and you don't want to go there.

Helen: Why, what's down in the basement?

Miz Brockman
Make trouble and you will find out, my dear. Now, come along to the showers.

Scene 2 Act 2 she is telling someone about life at the Pea Farm...

Helen: They're crazy folks at the Pea Farm...Miz Brockman...she's the warden...she made the girls plant yellow daffodils in rows, right out in front of the Big House! The Big House is where they put you over a barrel.

Later in the same conversation:

Jasper: How many times you escaped?

Helen: Four? Five? I don't quite recall. But each time they catch me they give me 10 lashes with the blacksnake and lock me in the cage. I need my medicine. Maybe if I lie down for just a spell...

Jasper: Helen, don't go to sleep again! We got to hide you. Dang! Now, what the heck is a blacksnake?

Later on why she returned to the river after one of her escapes.

Helen: I headed for the river, to breathe it and swim in it and sleep on it and dream again. I couldn't take another lashing.