Separate system

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The Separate system is a form of prison management, its principle being to hold prisoners in solitary confinement. When first introduced in the early 19th Century, the objective of such a prison or "penitentiary" was that of penance by the prisoners through silent reflection, as much as that of prison security. More commonly however, the term "separate system" is used to refer to a specific type of prison architecture built with such a prison management system in mind.

An isometric drawing of Pentonville (HM Prison), from an 1844 report to J.Jebb, showing a typical separate system prison layout^[1]

Eastern State Penitentiary

The first prison built according to the separate system was the Eastern State Penitentiary in the United States in 1829, a design that was later copied by over 300 prisons worldwide. Common features of a separate system prison include a central hall, with several (from four to eight) radiating wings of prison blocks, separated from the central hall and from each other by large metal bars. While all the prison blocks are visible to the prison staff positioned at the centre, individual cells cannot be seen, unlike panopticon prisons, unless the staff enter individual prison blocks.

The spaces between the prison blocks and the prison wall are used as exercise yards. When the separate system was first introduced, prisoners were required to be in solitary confinement even during exercise; as a result panopticon-style structures were erected inside these yards, in which a guard post was surrounded by tiny, cell-like, one-person exercise "yards". By the end of the 19th Century these structures were removed in favour of more open - if communal - exercise yards.

Many of these separate system prisons from the 19th Century continue to house prisoners to this day; moreover the separate system continues to influence modern prison architecture.