House Of Correction - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition house-of-correction

Definition :

House of correction, a species of goal which does not fall under the sheriff's charge, but is governed by a keeper wholly independent of that offence.

1. A reformatory 2. A place for the contaminant of furnace offenders or those who have committed crimes of cesser magnitude, Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edn.

Houses of Correction, fist established in the reign of Elizabeth, were originally designed for the penal confinement (after conviction) of paupers and vagrants refusing to work; but by 5 & 6 Wm. 4, c. 38, ss. 3, 4, reciting that great inconvenience and expense had been found to result from the practice of committing to the common goal where it happens to be remote from the place of trial, it is enacted that a justice of the peace, or coroner, may commit for safe custody to any house of correction situate near the place where the assizes or sessions are to be held; and that offenders sentenced in those courts may be committed, in execution of such sentence, to any house of correction for the county; and see the Criminal Justice Administration Act, 1851 (14 & 15 Vict. c. 55), ss. 20, 21, for power of justices to declare when houses of correction are fit prisons to commit to.