Doing time

摘要

When Oscar Wilde wrote the Ballad of Reading Gaol, he was all too familiar with the prison treadmill. In 1895, Wilde was convicted of gross indecency, sentenced to two years' hard labour and sent to Pentonville Prison in London. For a month he sweated on the mill for six hours a day. The mindless and exhausting labour ruined his health and left him feeling so low his gaolers feared he would kill himself. Wilde was moved, first to Wandsworth, then to Reading. Wilde was also unlucky. He was one of the last prisoners to work a treadmill. In the second half of the 18th century, Britain's jails were due for a much-needed overhaul. Conditions were chaotic and squalid, and punishments varied from one jail to another. No attempt was made to rehabilitate prisoners until the 1770s, when prison reformers such as John Howard started campaigning for sweeping changes. Jailers were to be given salaries instead of living off what they could extort from prisoners.