. These prisons were so bad because they were privately owned and the owners used the inmates for working purposes. They also shipped these men to other businesses for money paid to the prisons by the companies who needed cheap workers. The prisons lacked sewage and heat which made for horrible working conditions sometimes deadly working conditions.The prisoners life was a horrible one. They worked fourteen hours a day taking only short breaks for lunch and dinner. You only got lunch and dinner if you had money to pay for it or unless someone gave you some of their food or a visitor gave you some food. It was awful because these prisons were there to make money through any way they could by having inmates pay to get there shackles off or paying for a private room or for a room with your friend it was usually a pretty bad room but it was still better than the others. Due to the new law of no more public hangings there was a great amount of over population. This over population meant trouble for the prisoners because the prisoners who really didn't commit bad crimes were killed in jail by the guards. So now the prisoners who went to jail were there to be executed or if they weren't there for that it would mean they were shipped to factories, Australia or new prisons set up the Queen or King of England. It's a shame these men women and children were so mistreated over such little crimes but it made the crime rate go down. ( Mitchell pg's 638-41 )...
