# data[].attributes.body
Dorothea Dix researched and explored prisons all across the U.S to understand how jail inmates were treated and how they should be treated. She spoke out about the mistreatment and abuse of mentally unstable and sick people in prisons. People were being kept in cages, cells, and pens. They were lashed with chains, bound up, and mistreated in numerous other ways. She spoke out about the unethical nature of this and prompted the creation of five new hospitals in the U.S.. She also went to Europe and spoke with both the Queen and the Pope on the topic of human rights.

# data[].attributes.body
After the war of 1812, some key people, including Dorothea Dix, Francis Lieberman, and Samuel Gridley Howe noticed that jails treated prisoners too harshly. That resulted in the beginning of the prison reform movement. Before then, men, women, and children, no matter level of crime, were all grouped together in similar cells. After then, children were moved to juvenile detention centers. They began to separate men and women into separate facilities and divide them into groups based on level of crimes. Additionally, they began to strengthen the regulations of how to treat prisoners. The idea of psychiatric institutions also emerged, so mentally sick people were separated from criminals and sent to mental institutions where doctors began working with drugs and different types of therapy to treat them.

# data[].attributes.body
Today, the prison system is a very significant part of the U.S.. Americans pay taxes toward a healthy jail system. People, even the most severe of criminals, are properly treated as best they can be and are given an adequate amount of food and water, and a bed. Because of the efforts of Dorothea Dix and others like her, we now also have healthy psychiatric hospitals where patients suffering from mental illness may go. The current system is much healthier and more productive than it was 200 years ago.