Over the course of the long nineteenth century (1774-1918), the Ottoman Empire engaged in an imperial reform agenda rivaled by few others. One central area of Ottoman reform was its penal institutions, particularly prisons. Another was the realm of the Ottoman Criminal and Civil Justice Systems. These reforms affected many facets of Ottoman state and society, such as the adoption of the concept of prisoner rehabilitation, altering the concepts of childhood and adolescence, and the rationalization and standardization of criminal codes and prison procedures. Additionally, the relationship between the incarcerated and their families changed as a result of these reforms. With the state's greater assumption of power over the individual and incursion into the private sphere, questions regarding the role of the state in caring for its prisoners, particularly incarcerated women and children became an important area of concern and debate in late Ottoman culture and politics. Drawing upon a wealth of documents from the Ottoman Imperial Archives and period newsprint, this paper investigates how Ottoman penal law and practice affected the incarcerated and their families during the late Ottoman Empire. Among the specific topics to be discussed are the status and treatment of incarcerated women and those with small children; the provisioning of prisoners; petitions for redress by families of the incarcerated; and how people coped with the incarceration of family members, especially if the prisoner was the family's chief breadwinner or caregiver. The debates and practices regarding families and incarceration reflect broader changes in Ottoman state and society as a result of the onset of modernity, particularly in terms of the state's greater role in the lives of its citizens. As the state penetrated more deeply into the private sphere it assumed greater responsibility for the most private of a social institutions--the family. New penal policies and practices helped redefine the family in the late Ottoman Empire as a public sight of state intervention and regulation not only for issues related to social control and discipline, but also for rehabilitation and benevolence.