in 1655 the first 'house of correction, named the Brideswell, was built in London to put 'idlers, vagabonds' and sundry poor people thought to be up to no good, to forced work and incarceration. Numerous such facilities were built around England. According to one article the distinction between those 'poorhouses' and prisons was abolished in 1865.
Karl Marx, a fair social observer, commented in Das Kapital that a vast number of rural people were kicked off rural holdings to be forced into the city to work in factories of the industrial revolution. That would have increased problems of urban life, social strife and poverty obviously.
In the United States, in New York, a very famous Brideswell Prison was built by the British to incarcerate American prisoners of war with extreme and harsh conditions. The Provost Marshall of British prisoners admitted straving 2000 patriots to death and executing 275 outright for being obnoxious persons.
The Brits reopened the prison during the War of 1812 when they occupied N.Y.C.
ref. http://www.aaronburrassociation.org/bridewell_prison.htm
Arron Burr fled to avoid being incarcerated in the Brideswell.
