The parish workhouses discouraged helping the poor. The poor were punished in many ways: picking "oakum", the "universal staircase", men having to break rocks (the creation of broken rocks was not for rocks to serve a purpose). Crank-labour (winding winches with hard to turn "cranks") was another punishment. Men and women were separated in the workhouses (whether married or not). Mothers and fathers were separated from their children. The mentally ill were treated even worse: constantly falling to their deaths from windows or down stair cases, their "nurses" in very close proximity.