Dude, it is still a prison. Saying ‘yeah I could use a highly regimented living space for a while’ is one thing. But a prison is still something else.

Workhouses in Victorian England were very harsh places, sometimes even harsher than the prisons of the time… but they were not prisons. If a workhouse inmate wanted to leave, they could up and go at any moment without anyone stopping them. Because it was not a prison.