The 1880s prison design that forced inmates into a giant rotating squirrel cage
In short: Prison design is a form of technology aimed at controlling and reforming inmates. In the 1880s, the United States experimented with a bizarre innovation: the rotary jail. This video explores the history of these rotating structures and why they ultimately failed as a criminal justice solution.
During the 1880s, several rotary jails were constructed across the midwestern United States. These facilities functioned like a giant rotating squirrel cage, designed to contain and control prisoners through mechanical innovation.
Despite their ingenuity, these structures proved to be both impractical and unreliable. They remain a minor, strange footnote in the history of prison architecture, illustrating the lengths to which designers went to solve the problem of efficient incarceration.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: The Insane Real Life 19th Century Rotating Squirrel Cage Human Prison Design
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