Of course, insane asylums don’t exist anymore since medical professionals have a better understanding of mental illness and also medicine and the effects on the brain. Sadly there is still a lot of ignorance surrounding mental illness, but not as bad as in the 1960s for example.
One of Britain’s largest ‘insane asylums’,The Whittington Hospital in London was privy to many inhumane treatments of their patients, which included locking them outside in the courtyard all day in freezing weather. The patients were not allowed to bath or wash. The scariest part of this story is that this mental asylum only closed in 1995.
Around the same time, London opened its notorious Broadmoor Prison as it is known as today. Back then, in 1963, Broadmoor was known as Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. Prisoners who were deemed unfit to plead at trial served their sentences here. Peter Sutcliffe, who was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper is currently serving his sentence there. Some of the first Broadmoor prisoners were women who had murdered their children.
Going back a little further in time an interesting asylum was the Magdalene Laundries which was an Irish run asylum in the 18th century. Thousands of women passed through Magdalene’s doors and were serving time for, having children out of wedlock, prostitution, and other crimes. The women it has been told suffered terrible abuse whilst serving time there. Most shocking of all is that the institution only closed down in 1996 after a mass grave was found outside of the institution’s buildings.