The Origins of Prison Uniforms

The introduction of uniforms was part of a larger attempt to clean up the penitentiary system. It was meant to be a reform like Bentham's model prison, where conditions were meant to get better. So in the UK, this tightened up regulation looked like the broad arrow. And in the US, it looked like the black and white stripes,. If you pretend you're living in the 1860s, men did not dress that way. They were not wearing these big, bold patterns. This was an unusual outfit. Both the black andwhite stripes and the broad arrow were in Oscar Wilde's words, who was in Reading Prison for some time.