Prison

I

Introduction

Prison, institution for the confinement of people convicted of criminal offences. Secure places for the detention of people awaiting trial and for people who are considered insane have been built in most societies, but the confinement of convicts as a punishment for a crime is relatively new. Until modern times, penalties for crime were generally physical, from incarceration in the stocks (a form of public manacle in which criminals were exhibited) to execution. Imprisonment for life was occasionally used against people convicted of crimes against the state, as a commutation of the death sentence, and they were kept in such places as the Tower of London, or the Bastille in Paris. Such people were of high rank in society, and their punishment was difficult to distinguish from the political incarceration then common, as their crimes often consisted of being on the losing side in a power struggle.

II

Early History

In 16th-century England the only support for those in hardship took the form of workhouses, which were not unlike prisons, since they were designed to make seeking state help as undesirable as possible. They were also used to house vagrants and petty offenders. In the 17th century, the process of transporting convicted felons to the colonies began, and was continued for 200 years. The largest migration was to Australia in the 19th century. The transport and detention was initially thought of as a helpful side effect of the actual punishment (a term of several years’ hard labour), but the new idea was formed of a punishment that could be served over a period of time before the prisoner was released. The first such prisons in England were the collection points for criminals awaiting transport.

Shortly thereafter, England and other European countries—Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, for example—began imprisoning debtors and minor criminals, especially delinquents. An increasing savagery in the criminal law of England, with death the penalty for many offences, led in practice to the commutation of many sentences, and a considerable prison population. The early prisons were dark, overcrowded, and filthy; prisoners were herded together indiscriminately, with no separation of men and women, young and old, sane and insane, or convicted and unconvicted. Agitation for more humane treatment arose gradually in the 18th century, and in Britain the reformers John Howard (whose name was taken by a present-day penal reform group) and Elizabeth Fry achieved improvements in prison conditions.

Debtors’ prisons were somewhat different, as the debtor might live there with his or her family, who were free to come and go in order to maintain what was almost a household in the prisoner’s quarters. Imprisonment for debt was abolished in the 19th century after the novelist Charles Dickens exposed the iniquity of a system that imprisoned a man for debt without allowing him the freedom to discharge the debt.

Victorian prisons were gloomy places with little intercourse between the prisoners, who were supposed to reflect on their crimes in solitary confinement. Exercise was taken once a day in supposed silence. Many such prisons are still in use in Britain and can be identified by their arrangement of a “refractory”—a central lookout tower—with wings spreading from it housing prisoners. The system gradually allowed for more contact between prisoners, primarily in order to make it workable; this trend increased in the 20th century when the concept of rehabilitating prisoners was developed. As well as a punishment, prison would serve, by humane and orderly treatment of prisoners, to fit them for a better life on their release. At the same time, however, corporal punishment was still in use, both as part of the sentence for a crime (especially of violence) and as a punishment for breaches of prison rules. This practice ceased in the 1960s.

From early on, prisoners were required to do work while in prison. This was of a dull and monotonous character, most notoriously sewing mailbags (which is still carried out in a very few places) and breaking rocks. Today prisoners in Britain are paid small sums for the work they do, with which they can buy commodities such as cigarettes and chocolates inside the prison. Training and education are also provided, where practicable. The Scandinavian nations take this further, employing prisoners in more demanding jobs, with substantial wages and other work benefits, including in some cases “holidays” from prison.

III

Prison Organization

Modern British prisons are run by the Prison Service, an agency of the government organized on a quasi-commercial basis. There are also privately run prisons in Britain that receive their direction from the Service. A prison inspectorate visits prisons and reports on the treatment of prisoners, security, and any other matters it considers relevant.

There are three kinds of prison: local, training (or dispersal), and open prisons. Local prisons contain people on remand awaiting trial and convicted prisoners serving short sentences of up to 18 months. Training prisons are used to contain most prisoners serving longer sentences. Security levels vary, and prisoners are categorized according to their perceived dangerousness and likelihood of attempting escape, being then allocated to an appropriate prison. Open prisons are for those who are thought not to require significant security, and they are able to provide a more flexible and usually more pleasant environment for the prisoner. These have been criticized, however, for not providing a tough enough punishment, and there have been claims that distinguished figures in the commercial world, who are serving sentences for financial crimes, have been sent to open prisons before completing the usual three-month qualifying period in a closed prison that other prisoners must serve. In the United States some prisons have experimented with conjugal visitation, allowing the prisoner to spend up to 72 hours with a spouse and other family members in separate housing, such as a trailer. Such visitation programmes are common in Scandinavian countries.

The governor of each prison is in charge of minor disciplinary matters. More serious disciplinary issues and grievances voiced by prisoners go before a Board of Visitors, which should hear cases in a judicial manner, although there are provisions to stop prisoners using the hearing to take up time or cause difficulties for the prison authorities, rather than for the proper purpose of determining guilt or innocence. The Board may deduct periods of time from a prisoner’s remission (the time taken off the sentence for good behaviour) if it finds a charge made out. Prisoners may be prosecuted in the courts if their activities in prison amount to serious crime: the offences of prison riot and the possession of drugs in prison are taken particularly seriously.

The Board of Visitors also acts as a supervisory body that should oversee the proper running of the prison. It is comprised of lay volunteers.

IV

Prison Life

Prisons cannot be run on an entirely coercive basis and rely to some extent on the cooperation of prisoners. This depends on the relationship between staff and prisoners, and even in well-run prisons the staff do not enforce all regulations to the letter. It is believed that illegal alcohol, smuggled in or brewed on the premises, is widespread, and trafficking in drugs is not uncommon. This process can go to extremes: staff in one British prison guarding terrorist prisoners were found to be regularly running errands outside the prison for their charges; the prisoners’ domination of the relationship made it easy for them to conceal firearms and other equipment, which they used in a subsequent attempted escape in 1994. The Whitemoor prisoners were also allowed large amounts of personal belongings, which made it difficult for officers to search their possessions. Such privileges are the subject of continuous political argument.

Conditions are often physically unpleasant in prisons. Despite a plan to introduce sanitation into all prison cells, “slopping out”—the use of a bucket as a lavatory—is still used in much of the system. Prisoners often have to share cells. Violence between prisoners can be endemic. Sexual offenders are regarded with contempt by other prisoners, and they are usually segregated or kept in solitary confinement under “rule 43” for their own protection. Inmates find themselves frequently moved from prison to prison, to break up power bases within the penal community.

Although the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, the United Kingdom has a higher proportion of its population imprisoned than any other European nation, and this leads regularly to overcrowding. At its worst the overcrowding may lead to prisoners being locked in their cells for up to 23 hours a day, when the staff are otherwise unable to supervise them. Conditions like this have led to riots, which occur periodically. An example of this was the riot at Strangeways prison (now known as HMP Manchester) in Manchester in 1990, which was copied at other prisons. The prisoners took over the prison for days, forcing the staff to withdraw, and killed a number of sexual offenders.

A large number of mentally disturbed people are in prison. The Home Office government department has the power to transfer people with serious illnesses to secure hospitals. Other people with psychiatric problems are not suitable for the types of treatment dictated by psychiatric law, and their disposal presents more intractable problems.