1873 | Crime
Crime
Indiana Women's Prison opens at Indianapolis with a woman superintendent and 17 prisoners transferred from State Reformatory at Jeffersonville, where the degrading treatment of female inmates has outraged a group of Quaker women. They saw the women forced to strip naked and take outdoor baths in front of whip-cracking male guards, heard about nocturnal visits made by the guards to women's prison cells, and have demanded the construction of a separate facility for women. It is the first U.S. penal institution operated exclusively by and for women.