Children in Prison and Other Cruelties of Prison Life

Children in Prison and Other Cruelties of Prison Life is a prison reform pamphlet by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), drawn from the long letter he published in the Daily Chronicle in May 1897, days after his release from Reading Gaol. Wilde served two years at hard labour following his 1895 conviction, and the letter was written to defend a dismissed warder named Martin who had been sacked for giving biscuits to a crying child prisoner. Wilde describes from direct observation the treatment of children in English prisons, the starvation diet, the enforced solitude, and the mental collapse of vulnerable prisoners. The piece, with his second Chronicle letter and The Ballad of Reading Gaol, forms Wilde’s testimony against the Victorian prison system and contributed to the reform agitation around the Prison Act of 1898. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.