Living conditions

• The building’s walls were thick to stop communication between cells
• Prisoners mostly worked alone in their cells, doing tasks like oakum picking (unravelling and cleaning old rope).
• They were allowed out for short periods of exercise or to go to chapel, but would wear face masks while exercising and sat in individual cubicles in chapel, to prevent communication between them.
• There were high rates of depression, psychosis and suicide.
• Campaigners like Elizabeth Fry were critical of the conditions in Pentonville.