“… to form in them, as much as possible, those habits of sobriety, order, and industry, which may render them docile and peaceable while in prison, and respectable when they leave it.” In the early 1800s, English prisons were pits of indecency and brutality. The idea was to punish, not reform prisoners. Most people thought this was the way things should be or believed nothing could be done to change the entrenched system. Elizabeth Fry disagreed on