Dulcie Deamer and the women's reformatory, Long Bay

Through an analysis of an insightful article by Dulcie Deamer written in the mid-1920s, this paper, making use of Foucault's theory of the prison, explores the changing public perceptions about the Women's Reformatory at Long Bay near Sydney from the optimism of its official opening in 1909. The therapeutic ideological underpinnings of the regime at Long Bay, which were mainly devised by the feminist penal reformer Rose Scott, are scrutinised in some detail. The opportunities that were claimed to be provided in this new sanatorium of punishment and improvement are weighed up against Deamer's vivid but pessimistic impressions in 1925 in "In a Women's Prison" which appeared in The Australian Women's Mirror.