In his book titled, "Disciplined Natives: Race, freedom and confinement in Colonial India", the author

Satadru Sen has made a thoughtful and thought-provoking contribution to the study of Indian criminal
and penal history. Chapters three to six provide in his book, provide in, exhausting detail, the ideology
and practice of the Indian penal colony, around pertinent themes such as medical intervention, sur-
veillance techniques, and segregation through labour.

In chapter 8 titled, "Female Jails in Colonial India", It is discussed how there was a growing perception
that there were serious problems in the ways in which the female offenders were being punisned by the
state, during the Colonial Period, some of them being short term and a vast majority being long-term
prisoners. One assumption was that in order to reform or rehabilitate female offenders or women
prisoners, there needs to be a comprehensive segregation or isolation from all kinds of the so called
"Contaminated influences" at the time, some of these including isolation from family, free society, other
male or female convicts and even the sick ans the idle and the other reform being vocational training.

One reason tnat could help explain why these practices, in the rehabilitation of women seemed to be
unworkable was that the schemes of Labour, segregation and education came into conflict with one
another and faltered. In the book, the author talks about what the factors he thinks brought about the
failure of these jails. One factor being the actual reasons why these women were incarcerated and what
do these reveal about the ideological anxieties of the British rule at the time. He says that the primary
objective for incarcerating women at the time was to provide wives for male convicts, this can be seen
in the evidence that in Punjab, in 1873, more than 91 % of the female convicts were married to male
convicts in the penal colony. Among these male convicts are also included the ones being criminalized
for the act of being homosexual. Another reason was for the benefit of working to generate revenues
for the prison. Upon leaving, these female prisoners, would retain their skills and thus remain
ideologically and economically connected to the Colonial order.

The vocational practices carried out in order to educate the women were only in-substantially functional
in most of the jails, except for the Female penitentiary in Lahore, which worked to serve as a great
example. In 1863, more than 97 women were employed as wool spinners, 13 as cloth weavers, 1 as a
gunny weaver and one as a tailor. These pedagogical practices were not only beneficial to the prison but
also to the prisoners themselves, the evidence of which can be seen in the introduction of the "Ticket-
of-leave" program that allowed women to go outside of prison and work for themselves, provided that
the maintain good conduct.

The problem or the reason why these practices worked efficiently well within the female penitentiary in
Lahore and not in other jails in the country like Rawalpindi, Sialkot etc was one: The size of the jails
which, if small, typically resulted in intermingling of different kinds of prisoners, including criminals,
prostitutes and short term prisoners such as thieves all under one cell, and two: The inability to properly
segregate male and female convicts. Given the growing volume of such concerns, efforts were made to
equip Indian jails with new infrastructure. However, to the disappointment of the reformers, the prison
authorities were reluctant to use any of these resources even when they were available.
The overcrowded female wards, because of the small size of the jails, as previously mentioned was a
problem in the sense that these lead to many intramural offenses for which women prisoners were
inflicted with punishment within the jails. This is reflected in the evidence that in the evidence that in
1870, 46 women were punished for non-criminal violations of prison regulations, 40 for quarelling and
nine for possessions of contraband and 4 for other offences.

All of these details about female jails in India reveal that in the colonial period, the colonial government
was inclined to follow a gendered propriety in dealing with female prisoners, regardless of wether they
were in Lahore, the Andamans or Burma. According to Macaulayan roots: The purpose of the British-
Indian legal system was to teach "The sufferer to complain ".