What were Laws affecting the poor during the vicitorian era?

Lexy: What were Laws affecting the poor during the vicitorian era?
What were Laws affecting the poor, including debt, prision law and reform during the vicitorian age. Please include sources.

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Answer by shitstainz
The name most frequently associated with Utilitarianism is that of Jeremy Bentham, whose philosophical principles extended into the realm of government. These principles have been associated with several reform acts entered into English law such as the Factory Act of 1833, the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, the Prison Act of 1835, the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, the Committee on Education in 1839,the Lunacy Act of 1845, and the Public Health Act of 1845.

THE POOR

As early as 1795, the English implemented new remedies for poverty. A minimum guaranteed income plan was adopted. Workers receiving low wages received supplemental income through parish funds, the stipend calculated by family size as well as wages. Public grumbling soon arose, however, about poor families and unmarried women having children just to increase their income. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was passed and Edwin Chadwick, once Bentham’s personal aide, was made secretary of the Poor Law Commission.

The Poor Law Commission created several policies, including that of the workhouse system.
The applicant next met with medical examiners who determined whether he or she was able-bodied or infirm. Admittance to the House resembled admittance to a penal institution. Inmates were disinfected, their clothes were taken away, and they put on the House uniform. In some unions, unmarried mothers were forced to wear yellow gowns, branding them immoral as surely as if a scarlet “A” had been on their foreheads. Some also had their hair closely cropped as well. Once a week, inmates bathed and male inmates shaved — all in the presence of workhouse staff. The one marked difference between the House and a prison was that inmates in the House could check themselves out

THE PRISONS

In his Constitutional Code Bentham developed ideas for what could be termed a utilitarian democracy. In such a democracy the happiness sought by the legislators as individuals had to be made to coincide with the people’s happiness

Jeremy Bentham devised two methods for dealing with these issues, the Panopticon penitentiary and the National Charity Company. The Panopticon penitentiary would be run according to the rules of lenity, severity, and economy. Lenity meant that the prisoners would not be subjected to physical harm. Severity meant that that the prisoner’s level of comfort would not exceed that of the members of the lowest class of society. The economy of the Panopticon would be arrived at through the limited amount of staff needed to run it. According to Bentham’s architectural design of such a penitentiary:

The jailer in his central lodge would be able to see into each of the prisoner’s cells, but screens and lighting would be so arranged that he himself could not be seen by them…so they would all have the impression of an invisible omnipresence.

DEBT

In 1844, an Act was introduced which defined the position of those who were allowed into the debtors’ rooms, in order to make sure that those in there were actually debtors in the true sense of the word; and in 1868, a further Act meant that a person could only be admitted as a debtor if they had the means to pay off a creditor, but refused to do so. They were often treated as being in contempt of court, and treated like a felon.

The position of debtors in prison was slightly different to that of the regular prison population. The idea of the debtors being in prison was to confine them, not to punish them. Consequently, they were housed separately from the rest of the prison inmates; and the way that they lived in prison was dependant on their affluence and the generosity of friends and family.

They paid an admission fee to a certain room and the more expensive the room, the better the conditions.