Victorian Prisons and Women’s Incarceration

Victorian Britain developed prison systems that emphasised discipline, surveillance, separation and moral reform. Institutions such as Millbank became symbols of state punishment and of the attempt to regulate behaviour through architecture, routine and isolation.

Women prisoners were judged through ideas about class, sexuality, respectability and domestic failure. Their crimes and confinement were often interpreted through moral expectations that differed from those applied to men, making prison a setting for both punishment and social control.

Affinity uses Millbank Prison to explore confinement, charity visiting, emotional dependency and the power imbalance between visitor and prisoner.