THE+CONDITIONS+IN+THE+WORKHOUSES+ARE+GOING+TO+GET+WORSE


 * THE CONDITIONS IN THE WORKHOUSES ARE GOING TO GET WORSE**


 * There is been decided that the workhouses are going to get even more poorly then they already are. This is to keep those who exploit the system away, so they will think that it’s so disgusting that they don’t want to be there.**

The workhouses are for people who are too ill, poor or old to support themselves, and they need a place to eat and sleep. But of course they have to work to deserve it. Some of the work they have to do is stone-breaking, corn-grinding and oakum-picking. Oakum-picking involves teasing out the fibres from old hemp ropes, and are sold to navy and other ship-builders. Men, women and children are segregated from each other, so there’ve been a lot of families that have been separated. Poor people don’t get any support unless they don’t approve to live and work in a workhouse.


 * Four women are teasing out the fibres from old hemp ropes.**

The conditions in the workhouses is been decided to get worse then it already is, to keep the one who exploit the system away from the workhouses. They are also doing this with attempts to provide moral guidance, training and education to the poor. That means that the workhouse is getting dirtier and lesser food. They are also considering taking away the cutlery to complete the humiliation. Some workhouses don’t have any silverware to humiliate the inmates even more.

We all know that the conditions in the workhouses are pretty bad, and there’s a lot of violence going on. The relations between the inmates and staff aren’t good, it often causes to low level violence, verbal and sexual abuse. This can’t be good for any human-being, and it is proofed that many of those people who’ve been in workhouses have led to depression. There are women who refuse to talk and children who won’t play.

In one workhouse for children we have found out some of the punishments the children gets for breaking rules. For example a boy named John Staple who refused to work, got 28 days prison. Another example is Sarah Rowe who was noisy and swearing, she got locked up for 24 hours on bread and water. If you break any rules, there are two categories of punishments, one of them are disorderly conduct that can lead to withdrawal for food luxuries. The other kind of punishment is refractory conduct, which can result in a period of solitary confinement. We and many other people think no human-being should be treated that way. We hope that this will come to an end pretty soon.