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QUESTION: information on female prisoner population in New York State before 1887?

Submitted by Anonymooose on Mon, 05/26/2008 - 11:38am
question / pregunta: 

where would I find how many women were sentenced to prison in New York State (annually) before 1887?

Answers

Answer posted by: Saoirse

You should consider contacting the New York State Archives regarding your question. Their online catalog indicates that they have information on female prisoners in New York from the 1800's. Consider searching their website as well: www.archives.nysed.gov/aindex.shtml. You might also want to contact the Bureau of Justice Statistics: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/.

Answer posted by: jbeek

There are some state documents at the New York Public Library's Humanities and Social Sciences Library - the big one with the lions, on 5th Ave. - that might have the numbers you're looking for, and would likely be worth looking at for your research in general.

The Annual Report of the Inspectors of State Prisons, for which the catalog record lists holdings from 1848-1877 ("Library has: no.1-6, 8-14, 16-28 (1848-53, 55-61, 63-75)"), may have the statistical data you're looking for. That title is continued by the Annual Report of the Superintendant of State Prisons, for which the "Library has: 1876/7-1925/26(Incomplete)".

I suspect these might be found in large bound volumes of state legislative documents - that is the case in our New Jersey Collection - but the librarians in Humanities-General Research-Rm315 should be able help you out.