Class notes Board Certified Criminal Trial Attorney

Criminal justice Female inmates were treated with almost as much severity. The testimony revealed that it was a common practice to have their “dresses taken down, so as to expose the upper part of their back and shoulders, and punishment by the strap.” In defense of this mode of discipline, the superintendent pointed out that a female officer was “usually present” to supervise the whipping.13 The girls were also subjected to the punishment of being tied and “ducked” under water in a large tub. Mary Symonds’s experience with the superintendent was similar to other reported cases: Alderman: Did he put you in all over? Symonds: He put my head where my feet ought to go in the bath tub, and held me under the water for a few minutes. Alderman: Did he keep you there till you strangled? Symonds: He just held me and then took me out; I halooed, and said something to him that I ought not to say, and then he put me back again; I swore at him, and he ducked me a second time. Alderman: What did he do then? Symonds: He slapped me on the side of the face, and I halooed murder.14 Section I
Saving the Children 45 01-L 2/16/2008 12:39 PM Page 45 An investigation of the State Reform School at Westborough, Massachusetts, in 1877 revealed an even more elaborate system of punishments. Flogging with the “cat” was, once again, the primary method of maintaining order, and each of the officers was permitted to administer corporal punishments at his own discretion. The experience related by seventeen-year-old Cornelius Callahan is disturbingly similar to the stories told by the inmates of the Providence Reform School eight years earlier15.