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Prisoners may be separately confined.
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3. . . . . in order to prevent contamination arising from the association of prisoners, in any prison in which rules for the individual separation of prisoners shall be in force, any prisoner may be separately confined during the whole or any part of the period of his or her imprisonment, under the restrictions herein-after provided.
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Separate confinement not to be deemed solitary confinement.
Regulations respecting separate confinement.
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4. Separate confinement under the provisions of this Act shall not be deemed solitary confinement within the meaning of any Act forbidding the continuance of solitary confinement for more than a limited time: Provided always, that no cell shall be used for the separate confinement of any prisoner which is not of such a size, and lighted, warmed, ventilated, and fitted up in such manner, as may be required by a due regard to health, and furnished with the means of enabling the prisoner to communicate at any time with an officer of the prison; and that no cell shall be used for such separate confinement until its fitness in these several particulars shall have been certified by one of the inspectors general of prisons to the said lord lieutenant; and that every prisoner so separately confined shall have the means of taking air and exercise at such times as shall be deemed necessary by the surgeon, and shall be furnished with the means of moral and religious instruction, and with suitable books, and also with labour or employment, unless it shall be deemed advisable by the said lord lieutenant and council to make a regulation for withholding for a period or periods, not exceeding one calendar month at one time, such labour or employment: Provided also, that if it shall at any time be made to appear to the said lord lieutenant and council, that the conditions upon which such rules for the separate confinement of prisoners were allowed have not been fulfilled, or that upon further inquiry it shall appear that the provisions required are insufficient, it shall be lawful for the said lord lieutenant and council to annul the rules so made and allowed as aforesaid, and thenceforward the rules so annulled shall cease to be of force in that prison, and thereafter it shall not be lawful to continue any prisoner in separate confinement in that prison until new provisions shall have been made and allowed as aforesaid for the separate confinement of prisoners therein: Provided also, that in case the prison shall be inadequate for the individual separation of all the prisoners who may be confined therein at one time, the rules of the prison shall specify the class or description of prisoners who shall be confined in the separate cells, having regard either to the nature of the crime with which the prisoner may be charged, or of which he or she may have been convicted, or to the sex or age of the prisoner, or to the term of imprisonment, or to such other circumstances as the board of superintendence shall think fit, and as the said lord lieutenant and council shall approve.
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