ABSTRACT
Charles E.B. Russell was secretary of the Heyrod Street Lads Club in Manchester. He contributed to the boys’ club movement from 1892. He was the author of Young Gaol-Birds, and The Problem of Juvenile Crime. In 1911, he was appointed to the Departmental Committee on Reformatory and Industrial Schools; and in 1913 he was appointed chief inspector of reformatory and industrial schools. Russell’s article in The Englishwoman addressed the issue of female crime and its treatment. Women were committed to prison largely for crimes of sexual promiscuity, drunkenness, common assault, and theft under the Pawn-brokers Acts. Most sentences for these crimes were short; sentences for drunkenness or drunk and disorderly behaviour were rarely longer than 7 or 14 days. The primary focus of prison was to return women to normative femininity through a regime of domesticity and moral education, as much as their short stay would allow.
