With regard to the instruction of prisoners, she held decided views as to the primary importance of Scriptural knowledge.  The Bible, and the Bible alone, was to be the text-book for this purpose, while nothing sectarian was to be admitted; but in their fullest sense, “the essential and saving principles of our common Christianity were to be inculcated.”  She recommended reading, writing, arithmetic, and needlework, the last to carry with it a little remuneration, in order to afford the women some encouragement.  While acknowledging the wisdom of the Act of Parliament which provided that prayers should be read daily in all prisons, she strongly urges visitors and chaplains to teach privately “that true religion and saving faith are in their nature practical, and that the reality of repentance can be proved only by good works and by an amendment in life and conversation.”

For the employment of prisoners she recommends such occupations as patchwork, knitting stockings, making articles of plain needlework, washing, ironing, housework, cooking, spinning, and weaving.  It should in all cases be constant, and in the worst cases, disciplinary labor.  She recommends, under strict limitations, the treadmill for hardened, refractory, and depraved women, but only for short periods.  All needleworkers especially should receive some remuneration for their work, which remuneration should be allowed to accumulate for their benefit by such time as their sentences expire, in order that when they leave prison they may possess a little money wherewith to commence the world afresh.  Her words are:  “The greater portion of their allotted share of earnings, however, must be reserved for them against the time of their leaving prison and returning to the world.  The possession of a moderate sum of money will then be found of essential importance as the means of preventing an almost irresistible temptation, the temptation of want and money, to the renewal of criminal practices.  And if, in laboring for this remuneration the poor criminal has also gained possession of the habit of industry, and has learned to appreciate the sweets of regular employment, it is more than probable that this temptation may never occur again.”

Mrs. Fry quotes largely from the Act of Parliament, relative to the matters of diet, medical attendance, clothing, bedding, and firing.  It seemed to be the fact that the provisions of this Act did not extend to prisons which were exclusively under local jurisdiction; she therefore recommends lady visitors and committees to see them enforced as much as possible.  While preserving even-handed justice between criminals and the country whose laws they have outraged, by suggesting that their treatment should be sufficiently penal to be humiliating, that their hair should be cut short, and all personal ornaments forbidden, she pleads earnestly for proper bedding and firing.  She says:  “During inclement weather, diseases are sometimes contracted by the unfortunate inmates of our jails, which can never afterwards be removed.  I believe it has sometimes happened that poor creatures committed to prison for trial, have left the place of their confinement, acquitted of crime, and yet crippled for life.”