ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects the new determinate and mandatory sentencing laws in criminological research; because it deals with conviction offenses and time served and because it ranges broadly in terms of both geography and chronology. At the Albion reformatory-the institution that more than any other in the country established the ideals of the women's reformatory movement-few inmates had been convicted of serious crimes. Serious and petty offenders mixed to a greater extent at the Ohio reformatory. The range of this institution's conviction offenses was extreme-everything from using obscene language to murder. The five prisons under consideration varied in the type of sentence their inmates received. The three custodial institutions held prisoners for fixed terms until their states adopted indeterminate sentencing policies, at which point most prisoners received both a minimum and maximum sentence and had the possibility of early release on parole.
