In the mid-19th century, Irish prisons had virtually no prisoner classification or training programs, staff were poorly trained, and school and work programs were aimed at males. All too often, males and females were mixed and inadequately supervised, and such practices led to harsher imprisonment for women than for men. An effort to improve the treatment of women was one of the main motivations behind the creation of a centralized prison system under the General Prisons Board in 1877. By the point of centralization, both Irish convicts and local prisons had rapidly aging institutions and increasingly troublesome female populations of recidivists and violent offenders. Much vaunted training programs consisted of enforced domesticity to reawaken natural piety, purity, and submissiveness among women. In local prisons, female inmates largely endured the same conditions in 1878 that they experienced in 1855. The General Prisons Board, established to centralize prison operations along efficient and humane lines, did little more than close some of the worst institutions and designate others as female gaols. Although specialized gaols relieved some women of abysmal incarceration, the same placements put women more distant from family and friends upon release. In short, Irish convict prisons and local gaols treated female prisoners similarly, despite their different tasks and reputations. 63 notes