ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the role of spatial practices in producing jail-spaces by examining an early moment in the history of the imposition of messing in British Indian jails in 1841-1842, with special reference to the spatial practices in the jails of Chuprah, Gyah and Bhaugulpore. Jails and dungeons had existed as places of detention and confinement under pre-colonial regimes also, mostly for persons awaiting trial or execution and sometimes for political prisoners. During the late eighteenth century jails in Bengal were mostly temporary structures, congested, poorly ventilated and ill-located, with mud-walls and straw-thatched roofs. The magistrates were enjoined to prevent the maltreatment of prisoners by native officers employed in the jails, to enquire immediately into prisoners' complaints and to punish the offenders suitably when required. The overall quantum and texture of punishment as experienced by prisoners was almost invariably shaped by their gender, age, rank and social status inside and outside the jail.
