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The crisis in the jails
0024-6301/86 $3.00 + .OO Pergamon Journals Ltd.
Long Range Planning, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 27 to 34, 1986 Printed in Great Britain
27
The Crisis in the Jails Stephen Shaw, Director, Prison Reform Trust
Overcrowding within the prison system is a predominant concern and in looking for answers to problems facing the jails other issues too should be considered. What are prisons for? Why are they so bedevilled b y bad industrial relations, and why does this country have the highest prison population in Western Europe? Ill-considered policy choices and an over-emphasis on security misdirects resources, and the system has become virtually unmanageable. The crisis is not only a question of numbers, it is one of objectives.
In the spring of 1984 the Statistical Department of the Home Office published its projections of the prison population for the next 8 years.’ The Department forecast that the average number of prisoners in England and Wales would rise from 43,000 in 1984 to 49,000 in 1992. This projection was broadly consistent with the then Home Secretary’s own prediction that his unprecedented programme of new prison building would end prison overcrowding by the end of this decade.* A year on, the Home Office forecasts are of historical interest only. In practice, the prison population had already exceeded 48,000 by the summer of 1985. In some prisons, prisoners were forced to sleep on mattresses in corridors or in workshops. The Home Office embarked on a frantic search for additional accommodation. Prison officers barracked Leon Brittan at their Annual Conference. Prison governors reported that only the unseasonably cold weather was preventing riots and disturbances. Yet the problem of numbers and overcrowding is only the best publicized feature of a more fundamental crisis afflicting the prison system. What are prisons fir, when popular notions of containment and deterrence are largely disproved by criminological research and no custodial regime can demonstrate a treatment or rehabilitative effect? Why are prisons bedevilled by restrictive work practices and chronically bad industrial relations? Why are they consuming resources at an increasing rate while the quality of their output declines? What is it about
sentencing policy in this country which results in a prison population which is virtually the highest in Western Europe?
A Description
of the Prison System
The prisons may be divided according to six basic functions. Localprisons are the bedrock of the system. Predominantly of 19th century construction, local prisons hold men awaiting trial (i.e. those who are deemed, technically at least, to be innocent and are frequently proven so at court) and some convicted prisoners serving short sentences or awaiting allocation to another type of prison. It is in the local prisons that the most extreme problems of overcrowding prevail. Training prisons take convicted prisoners and are divided into four security categories ranging from top-security ‘dispersal’ prisons to ‘open’ prisons. Conditions in training prisons tend to be better than in local prisons, as overcrowding is kept to a minimum, but this creates a bottle-neck in the local prisons where men await transfer to training prisons. Young male offenders are held in three types of establishments. Remand centres cater for under21 year-olds awaiting trial and are also suffering overcrowding problems. Some unconvicted young men are also held in wings of adult local prisons. Detention centres take convicted youths of 14-20 serving sentences up to four months. The legendary, but ineffective, ‘short, sharp shock’ regime is operated with emphasis on discipline, military-type drills, hard work and spartan conditions. These have proved unpopular with the courts, with the result that many detention centres are little more than half-full. Youth custody centres take those aged 15-20 serving sentences from 4 months to life imprisonment. The regime is focused around training in both basic educational and vocational skills, though these programmes are often not fully operational. Youth custody centres replaced the old borstals and may be either ‘open’ or ‘closed’ in terms of security levels.
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Long Range Planning Vol. 19
June 1986
Women’s prisons cater for a range of young and adult women. There are female wings in various remand centres, two female youth custody centres, and a number of ‘open’ and ‘closed’ women’s prisons. Women form a fairly small element of the prison population; at the end of June 1985 there were 1577 women in prison, compared with 45,926 men. Table 1 compares the available accommodation and population of each of the six types of prison establishment. The table demonstrates clearly that overcrowding is concentrated almost exclusively in local prisons and remand centres. While over 17,000 prisoners in such establishments share cells designed by the Victorians for single occupation, the majority of prisons are not particularly overcrowded. I will argue later in this paper that this is a policy choice on the part of the prison authorities. No recent social profiles of the prison population are available, but the vast majority of prisoners are working-class and many have been unemployed prior to their conviction. In Britain, fine defaulters are still imprisoned, though fining those dependent on state benefits is blatantly unrealistic, and failure to pay maintenance is still an imprisonable offence. The debtors’ prisons of the last century are still with us. An increasing number of prisoners are black or from other ethnic minorities. In the United States over half of all prisoners are black and extrapolating to the end of this century, a similar situation may prevail in Britain’s gaols. Contrary to popular belief, three-quarters of sentenced prisoners have been convicted of non-violent offences with short sentences for petty theft accounting for a large proportion of that number. Just under a third of prisoners are under the age of 21. In order to accommodate just under 50,000 prisoners, the prison system employs about 27,000 staff. Of these, about 18,000 are uniformed officers. 3 Between 1979 and 1984, the number of prison officers increased by 15 per cent: in absolute terms, more prison officers were recruited than prisoners.4 A new recruiting drive is in progress, and by 1988 a further 6000 staff will join this number. Uniformed prison officers are, with overtime, among the best paid manual workers in the country. Table 1. Accommodation Prison type
An Expansionary
System
Figure 1 traces the consistent growth of both prison population and the official ‘normal’ accommodation since the war. By contrast, the prison population between the wars was roughly one-third its present level, and it rose and fell only marginally year by year. Before the First World War, Home Secretary Winston Churchill used powers of amnesty to encourage a halving of the prison population in the course of a decade.5 The fact that there is nothing inevitable in a rising number of prisoners is demonstrated by the example of penal policy in the Netherlands. Over the past 25 years or so, the Dutch have reduced their prison population by three-quarters from an original level which was broadly equivalent to that of England and Wales. This is the result of a definite decision by the Dutch authorities, in particular by public prosecutors and by judges, to strictly limit the use of incarceration.6 Other countries, notably Japan and Sweden, have consistently maintained a much lower level of imprisonment than has been the case in the U.K. The gap between the reliance upon prison in these islands and that of our colleagues in the European Community is shown in both Figure 2 and Table 2. Figure 2 is based on average prison population; Table 2 on the number ofpeople received into prison each year. It will be seen that, judged either by utilization or by throughput, our record is without close parallel. It could, of course, be argued that the Dutch, the Japanese and others pay a price for their lower use of imprisonment in higher rates of crime. As countries differ in their definitions of criminal acts and, more importantly, reporting and recording practices by the police vary widely, it is difficult to make such international comparisons. However, in so far as it is possible to make a judgement, there seems little relationship between a nation’s reliance upon prison and its rate of crime. Countries such as the United States, the Soviet Union and South Africa (which have a higher rate of imprisonment than Britain) do not notably enjoy a lower rate of crime. In terms of
and prison population, June 1985 No.’
Accommodation
Local prison Training prisons Detention centres Youth custody centres Remand centres Female establishments (not incl. above) Total ‘Some institutions serve more than one purpose. Source: Home Office
Population
Occupancy rate (%)
The Crisis in the Jails
29
Population
Accommodation
10,000~
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
19461946195019521954195619581960196219641966196819701972197419761978198019821984
’
’
’
Source: Home Office
Figure 1. Prison population and accommodation, Table 2. The use of imprisonment European countries
Country U.K. Belgium Italy West Germany Holland Spain France Portugal
in certain
Population (millions)
Nos. imprisoned (1982)
Rate of imprisonment per 100,000 population
55.5 10 54 62 13 37 53 IO
152,248 21,196 128,846 123,395 23,900 56,730 74,427 7762
274 212 207 199 184 153 140 78
Source:NACRO, The Use of Imprisonment-Some August 1985.
Facts and Figures,
personal safety, few people would choose to live in the city once known as New Amsterdam rather than in Amsterdam itself. Table 3 shows the average running costs of different types of British prison. The cost of running the prison system has accelerated rapidly in real terms since 1945. In particular, the ratio of prison officers to prisoners has fallen from just under 1:7 to just over 1:2. This is despite permanent allegations of ‘staff shortage’ and levels of overtime without parallel in the public or private sector. In some
1946-1985 the establishments, 20 hours a week.
rate
of
overtime
exceeds
According to Rod Morgan of the University of Bath, himself a member of a prison board of visitors for 12 years: ‘Prison governors readily admit admit that local manning agreements or the content of so-called ‘essential’ and ‘reserve’ task ‘lists’ owe more to historical precedent, governor strength and local Prison Officers Association committee goodwill than rational planning’.’
The Treasury has also given credence to the view that restrictive practices prevent the efficient use of staff: ‘Productivity within the prison service, as measured (crudely)by the rate of staffto inmates,has been declining for some time. There is accordingly a need to consider whether rigidities in the schedules of work and management of staff have contributed to this. . . it is important that the prison service should use its manpower more e&iently and make it more adaptable to the needs of the future’.*
Although the Prison Officers’ Association undoubtedly enjoys a very powerful position relative to Prison Governors, there are more fundamental reasons why the prison system is both unnecessarily costly and fails to deliver a humane service to prisoners. These include the excessive emphasis upon security and the mis-match between tasks and resources in the local prisons vis-h-vis the long-term training prisons.
June 1986
Long Range Planning Vol. 19
Great Britain -uxembourg ltal
Fran1ce Belqium Denmark
Portl
Ireland
-
Spain
Fee Netherlands
83.9
-
-
L
104.4 -
-
78.0
-
76.3
- 74.2
-
72.0
-
70.0
-
68.6
47.6
44.3
II 40.0
31.0
Source: Council of Europe
Figure 2. Prison population per 100,000 total population in the countries of the E.E.C. (February 1984)
Security and Resource
Allocation
To take the security issue first, it may appear to strike at the very r&on d’8tre of a custodial system to argue that the system places ‘excessive emphasis’ upon security. And it is true that the question ‘How much security do we require?’ is not capable of a unique resolution. No two people would take the same view of the level of ‘acceptable’ risk. However, it is matter of fact not speculation, that, as Table 4 shows, definitions of the security categorization of prisoners (and hence of staffing levels in prisons) differ between the four prison department regions. The South West, for example, has twice the proportion of its prison population in the two highrisk security classifications as does the Midlands. According to the independent Chief Inspector of Prisons : ‘In the last resort, it is the availability of accommodation that usually determines an inmate’s security categorization’.’ This is confirmed by the figures in Table 4. If the three other regions were to categorize prisoners in line with the Midlands, more than &Om a year would be saved in staff costs
alone. This would then become available where it is most needed; in the urban local prisons and remand centres. The problems of these institutions are only imperfectly captured by considering the extent of overcrowding. These are extremely busy prisons. Many of the larger local prisons have in excess of 40,000 prisoner movements annually. Each reception and transfer requires prison officers as escorts and interminable paper-filling. It is the absence of prison officers whilst escorting prisoners to and from court which explains the ‘shortage’ of staff from prison landings, workshops and class-rooms. Some alleviation of these pressures could be achieved if the functions of training prisons were altered. Some of the most damaging effect of imprisonment are caused by the fact that prisoners are routinely transferred to establishments away from their family and friends. If some of the existing training prisons were to become ‘locals’, this effect could be minimized at the same time as reducing the stress on the existing local prisons.
The Crisis in the Jails
31
Table 3. The running costs of prisons Average weekly cost per prisoner by type of establishment and region, 1983-I 984 Local prisons and remand centres Top-security dispersal prisons Category 8 training prisons Category C training prisons Open adult prisons Closed youth establishments Open youth establishments Female establishments All establishments NA: not applicable
All regions
North
Midlands
SE
SW
216 478 239 178 144 254 283 330 234
188 394 NA 157 126 232 258 224 209
220 512 227 170 145 242 305 NA 221
238 730 238 213 147 280 305 436 264
225 441 249 202 185 278 338 NA 244
Source: Home Office, Prison Department Financial Report 1983-l 984 (1985).
Table 4. Regional
security categories Category(%)
Region Midland: prisons prisoners Northern: prisons prisoners South-east: prisons prisoners South-west: prisons prisoners
A
B
C
D
1 .o 1.6 1 .I 1.4
19.4 14.8 33.3 21.7 40.9 29.7 40.1 30.8
51.5 59.1 45.0 58.2 36.4 44.5 46.0 50.4
29.0 25.0 21.7 18.5 22.7 24.7 13.9 17.3
(percentages independently rounded) Source: Hansard, 19 January 1984, cc. 281-2. Key:
Category A:
Category 0
:
Category C:
Category 0:
Prisoners whose escape would be highly dangerous to the public or the police or to the security of the State. The 300 or so Category A prisoners are held for the most part in top-security ‘dispersal’ prisons along with a much larger number of Category 6 prisoners. There are no Category A prisons as such. Prisoners for whom the very highest conditions of securitv are not necessary, but for whom escape must be made very difficult. Prisoners who cannot be trusted in open conditions, but who do not have the ability or resources to make a determined escape attempt. Those who can be reasonably trusted to serve their sentence in open conditions.
What Prisons are For Viewed from a utilitarian perspective, there are three classic functions of the prison system: to deter; to incapacitate and to reform. Much social science research effort has been invested in measuring these effects. The results are almost uniformly negative. There is some deterrence, but it is largely discounted by the offender’s assessment of the chances of apprehension. lo (Since, for example, the clear-up rate for burglaries in London is only 7 per cent, the deterrent effect of punishment would be almost entirely discounted by the rational ‘profit-maximizing’ offender.) There is, by definition, some containment-but relative to the incidence of crime as a whole the effect is at best marginal.” In America, mandatory minimum prison sentences have been
introduced in recent years in several states. They have succeeded in dramatically escalating the number of prisoners, but have had little or no discernible impact on the level of crime. The greatest volume of criminological research has concentrated, however, on measuring the effect of imprisonment upon future offending. Although the design of much of this research is not very sophisticated (the majority of studies use a standard 2 year follow-up after release and do not differentiate offences by seriousness) the findings may be summarized briefly. No custodial ‘treatment’ can convincingly demonstrate a greater effect than any other or, indeed, than no treatment at all. Long sentences are no more effective than short ones.‘* Such findings call into question many aspects of the prison system. Since the last century, the prison system has been based upon a ‘treatment’ or ‘training’ regime, even if some of the methods of enforcing the treatment we would now consider barbaric. The current Prison Rule 1 insists: ‘The purpose of the training and treatment of convicted prisoners shall be to encourage and assist them to lead a good and useful life’.13 The system of release on parole licence is premised upon prisoners reaching a measurable ‘peak’ in their ‘training’; an optimum point at which the prison system has maximized its effectiveness. The distinction between ‘local’ and ‘training’ prisons also assumes that there is some recognizable training. The failure of criminological research to reveal any rehabilitative effects of imprisonment has led to a search for an alternative rationalization for incarceration. Since social scientists, like their colleagues in the natural sciences, abhor a vacuum, there has emerged the so-called ‘just deserts’ or ‘justice’ model. Simply stated, this implies that the purpose of imprisonment is punishment. Claims for a more positive approach to custody are flawed both in theory and in practice. Unfortunately, there is no logical nexus between any one offence and any one sentence or any one custodial regime. However, one consequence of the
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June 1986
justice model is the view that, since prison can exert no benefit for good, there is no justification for prison regimes and rules differing from standards in the community at large. Prison, in other words, should be ‘normalized’. Prisoners should enjoy the same rights as all other citizens. The provision of services within prison should be incorporated as far as possible with those existing in society as a whole.14 However, in itself, the ‘justice model’ affords little indication of the proper use of imprisonment and the size of the prison system. Indeed, other than a distaste for executive interference with the effective length of sentences (for example, the parole system) there is little in common between advocates or ‘justice’ in this country and in the United States. Nevertheless, to pose the question in this form does bring to the fore the central truth about penal policy; i.e. that the government can choose whatever level of incarceration it wishes and the level of resources it wishes to spend. In other words, and contrary to the impression given by the Home Office, the prison population is not simply determined by the ‘free market’ of thousands of individual sentencing and remand decisions by the courts. At least, in a downward direction, the prison population can be supply led.
Choosing
the Future
It is fair to admit that attempts to trace the impact of available accommodation on the numbers of prisoners have not proved statistically meaningful. However, few would doubt that a prison building programme of the type currently under way in this country sends an unmistakable signal to the courts. At the same time, there is at least one country which operates a quota system of prison places dependent upon gaol capacity (rather like queueing for a hospital bed). E ven in England, the courts are supposed to check if a place in a detention centre is available before passing such a sentence. Nevertheless, it may be argued that a fundamental constitutional principle is imperilled if the executive were to interfere with the sentencing policy of the judiciary. However, the power to grant an amnesty is already on the statute books as a result of recent Conservative legislation. I5 Furthermore, it is the duty of the executive to set the parameters of judicial discretion, that is to say, by determining which offences are imprisonable and in what circumstances, and by setting maximum penalties. This is a legitimate matter of political choice. There is no reason in law or in logic why a ceiling should not be set upon the number of prisoners just as it is for the number of patients treated annually by the NHS or for the number of students enabled to enter higher education. The notion of a ‘quota’ could indeed be extended by applying a ‘budget’ of prison sentences which each
court could use in the course of a year. Within that budget, courts would enjoy total freedom in sentencing in individual cases. However, it would be for the state to decide the overall use of incarceration. Some idea of the current range of sentencing practice is given in Table 5. Similar disparities would be found for the use of remands in custody or on bail. Not only is this fundamentally unjust, but it indicates the potential which exists for reducing the prison population without exciting a popular outcry. If all courts were to reduce their use of custody to that of Northumberland or Gwent, the prison population could be reduced by at least 6000 people. It defies belief that what is acceptable to the people of Warwickshire would not be possible in the neighbouring county of Oxfordshire. The Home Office projections cited at the beginning of this paper may be criticized not only for their palpable error. The real failure of such forecasts is that they deny the crucial element of policy choice which lies behind the prison population. The choice of an expanding system is most apparent in the present government’s prison building programme.
The Case Against New Prisons In contrast to the virtual standstill in other forms of construction, Britain is currently in the middle of a vast boom in new prison building. The government is investing L370m in 17 new gaols, the largest building programme this century. The new prisons have received little attention in Parliament, perhaps because MPs now welcome any form of central government investment in their constituencies. However, there are important reasons for believing that the building programme is not a rational Table 5. Rates of imprisonment magistrates courts in 1982
in selected
Adult male offenders convicted of indictable offences and sentenced to immediate imprisonment in magistrates’ courts (as a percentage of total sentences) Area
%
Oxfordshire Devon Dorset East Sussex North Yorkshire Inner London West Midlands Merseyside Buckinghamshire Staffordshire Warwickshire Northumberland Gwent
21.3 14.7 14.5 13.7 13.0 10.2 9.1 8.4 6.7 6.6 6.0 5.9 5.3
National average
9.7
Source: UnequalBefore the Law: a Judicial Geography of England & Wales, Radical Alternatives to Prison, 1984.
The Crisis in the Jails response to rising crime rates and an increasingly decrepit penal estate. It is of course at first sight contradictory to argue against new prison building given the acknowledged pressures caused by overcrowding. Yet, it will have been obvious from what has been argued earlier that the problem in this country is not so much one of too few prisons but of too many prisoners. For example, nearly one in five of all prisoners is technically (and, in many cases, actually) innocent. The numbers of these remand prisoners could be substantially reduced by diminishing waiting times for trial and by establishing a network of bail hostels for those with no permanent address. There is also a strong case for transferring resources from the prison system to the various ‘alternatives to custody’. Most such alternatives are far cheaper than prison and no less effective. However, were we to reduce our average length of sentences in line with the prevailing mood in Europe, the effect on the prison population would be even greater and the rationale for new prison constructions would disappear. It is this argument which led the Economist newspaper to dismiss the building programme in the most trenchant terms as ‘a politician’s ramp, and a sad waste of public money’.16 New prisons are major and enduring civil engineering projects. Most of the prisons which are to be found in our cities date from over a century ago. Pentonville was constructed in 1842; Leeds in 1847; Birmingham in 1860 and Manchester in 1869. Prisons also endure long past their supposed lifespan: both Dartmoor and Oxford were first officially condemned before World War II, yet both continue in operation today. For that reason, the decisions currently being taken about new prisons will determine the shape and size of the penal system well into the 21st century and beyond. However, we can be far less certain what use will be made of these new prisons. For, as we have seen earlier, if predicting the total size of the prison population on the basis of current sentencing trends is an extremely difficult task, it need hardly be added that predicting the size of the component parts of that population is even more subject to error. For this reason, prisons constructed (and designed) for one purpose are frequently brought into commission for a quite different purpose. Top-security Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight was originally scheduled to be a low-security gaol. Moreover, in view of the unpredicted effects of the 1982 Criminal Justice Act (particularly the relative unpopularity of the ‘short, sharp shock’ amongst magistrates) the government is rapidly converting detention centres into youth custody centres. The
effects
of
these
changes
in
function
are
33
frequently calamitous. Because of inappropriate design, staffing levels (and hence running costs) are much higher. The outbreak of suicides and selfmutilations in Holloway women’s prison may also be attributed in no small part to design faults. An interesting case-study of the Home Office’s inability to plan effectively is provided by the gaol currently under construction at Full Sutton in the Vale of York. Over the last 35 years,’ a whole series of different proposals have been made for Full Sutton: 1949 1964 1968
1972
1983 1984
Home Office propose a borstal and camp; Home Office propose two prisons, one open with 500 prisoners and one closed for 300 prisoners; Home Offke proposed two closed prisons (one Category B for 450 men, one Category C for 750 men) ; Home Office propose two closed prisons (one top-security ‘dispersal’ prison and one Category C, each for between 450 and 500 prisoners); Home Office start construction on the dispersal prison only (to accommodate 447 men); Top Home Office committee recommends phasing out of dispersal prisons.” Home Office admits Full Sutton may never operate as a dispersal. ‘13
No wonder the Prison Department Official responsible for the prison building programme conceded: ‘Traditionally the Prison Department has attempted to assess its capital investment needs in terms of population forecast, matched with CNA [Certified Normal Accommodation] estimates. The data on both counts have proved notoriously unreliable”’
Conclusions To summarize, the British prison system is in crisis. That crisis is not simply a question of numbers, but of objectives. The prisons do not contribute more than marginally to the control of crime. Many prison sentences seem not to be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and there are grotesque disparities between one court and another. Indigent offenders appear to be punished for their poverty (contrast the ‘policing’ of Inland Revenue offences uisd-vis social security fraud). Within the system, ill-considered policy choices and the over-emphasis upon security pushes up costs and misdirects resources away from where they are most needed. The prison building programme will (literally) set in concrete this pattern of affairs well into the next century. The government denies that it can affect the size of the prison population and is simply responding to the needs of the courts. (The present administration was of course elected on a ‘law and order’ platform, but it was a Labour Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees, who described the rising number of prisoners as an index of his success in pursuing ‘law and order’.)
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Long Range Planning Vol. 19
June 1986
Therein lies the rub. The crisis in the prisons cannot be abstracted from broader trends in economic and social policy. The planning of penal policy rests ultimately on ideology and political choice. One can sympathize with those Home Office officials forced to wrestle with an almost unmanageable system and with scant basis to plan rationally for the future. The assent of the Treasury to the present bout of prison building is more difficult to excuse.
(7)
NACRO, A Prison System for the Eighties and Beyond (1983).
(8)
Home Office, Inquiry into the UK Prison Services, Vol. Ill. Paper 3, The use of resources within the prison system, 23 January 1979.
(9) Annual Report of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, 1982, H MS0 (1983). (10)
D. Beyleveld, A Bibliography on General Deterrence Research, Saxon House (1979).
(11)
Stephen Brody and Roger Tarling, Taking Offenders out of Circulation, Home Office Research Study 64 (1980).
(12)
S. R. Brody, The Effectiveness of Sentencing-s Review of the Literature, Home Office Research Study 35 (1976). This study, which is probably the most influential work of criminology published in this country in the last twenty years, might more appropriately have been entitled The ineffectiveness of Sentencing.
(13)
The Prison Rules 1964, Statutory Instrument No. 388.
(14)
See, for example, National Association of Probation Officers, Criminal Justictin Afternative Strategy (1985).
popular expression ‘screw’ derives from the mechanism used to increase or decrease the tension of the treadwheel.
(15)
Amongst other places, the power of amnesty is included in the CriminalJustice Act 1982, passed by the present administration.
Stephen Shaw, Why prisons have become a growth industry, Public Money, 4 (2) September (1984).
(16)
The Economist, 6 April (1985).
(17)
Report of the Control Review Comminee, Managing the LongTerm Prison System, H MS0 (1984).
(18)
In correspondence with the author.
(19)
Prison Reform Trust, The Bogus Numbers Game:a critique of the planned top-security prison at Full Sutton (1983).
References and Notes (1) Home Office Statistical Bulletin 8184, Projections of Trends in the Prison Population to 1992.
(2) A forecast first made at the 1983 Conservative Party Conference. (3) The word ‘warder’ was officially abolished in the 1920s. The
(4)
(5) Andrew Rutherford, Prisons and the Process of Justice: The Reductionist Challenge, Heinemann (1984). (6)
David Downes, The origins and consequences of Dutch penal policy since 1945, British Journal of Criminology, 22, October (1982).
Long Range Planning, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 27 to 34, 1986 Printed in Great Britain
27
The Crisis in the Jails Stephen Shaw, Director, Prison Reform Trust
Overcrowding within the prison system is a predominant concern and in looking for answers to problems facing the jails other issues too should be considered. What are prisons for? Why are they so bedevilled b y bad industrial relations, and why does this country have the highest prison population in Western Europe? Ill-considered policy choices and an over-emphasis on security misdirects resources, and the system has become virtually unmanageable. The crisis is not only a question of numbers, it is one of objectives.
In the spring of 1984 the Statistical Department of the Home Office published its projections of the prison population for the next 8 years.’ The Department forecast that the average number of prisoners in England and Wales would rise from 43,000 in 1984 to 49,000 in 1992. This projection was broadly consistent with the then Home Secretary’s own prediction that his unprecedented programme of new prison building would end prison overcrowding by the end of this decade.* A year on, the Home Office forecasts are of historical interest only. In practice, the prison population had already exceeded 48,000 by the summer of 1985. In some prisons, prisoners were forced to sleep on mattresses in corridors or in workshops. The Home Office embarked on a frantic search for additional accommodation. Prison officers barracked Leon Brittan at their Annual Conference. Prison governors reported that only the unseasonably cold weather was preventing riots and disturbances. Yet the problem of numbers and overcrowding is only the best publicized feature of a more fundamental crisis afflicting the prison system. What are prisons fir, when popular notions of containment and deterrence are largely disproved by criminological research and no custodial regime can demonstrate a treatment or rehabilitative effect? Why are prisons bedevilled by restrictive work practices and chronically bad industrial relations? Why are they consuming resources at an increasing rate while the quality of their output declines? What is it about
sentencing policy in this country which results in a prison population which is virtually the highest in Western Europe?
A Description
of the Prison System
The prisons may be divided according to six basic functions. Localprisons are the bedrock of the system. Predominantly of 19th century construction, local prisons hold men awaiting trial (i.e. those who are deemed, technically at least, to be innocent and are frequently proven so at court) and some convicted prisoners serving short sentences or awaiting allocation to another type of prison. It is in the local prisons that the most extreme problems of overcrowding prevail. Training prisons take convicted prisoners and are divided into four security categories ranging from top-security ‘dispersal’ prisons to ‘open’ prisons. Conditions in training prisons tend to be better than in local prisons, as overcrowding is kept to a minimum, but this creates a bottle-neck in the local prisons where men await transfer to training prisons. Young male offenders are held in three types of establishments. Remand centres cater for under21 year-olds awaiting trial and are also suffering overcrowding problems. Some unconvicted young men are also held in wings of adult local prisons. Detention centres take convicted youths of 14-20 serving sentences up to four months. The legendary, but ineffective, ‘short, sharp shock’ regime is operated with emphasis on discipline, military-type drills, hard work and spartan conditions. These have proved unpopular with the courts, with the result that many detention centres are little more than half-full. Youth custody centres take those aged 15-20 serving sentences from 4 months to life imprisonment. The regime is focused around training in both basic educational and vocational skills, though these programmes are often not fully operational. Youth custody centres replaced the old borstals and may be either ‘open’ or ‘closed’ in terms of security levels.
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Long Range Planning Vol. 19
June 1986
Women’s prisons cater for a range of young and adult women. There are female wings in various remand centres, two female youth custody centres, and a number of ‘open’ and ‘closed’ women’s prisons. Women form a fairly small element of the prison population; at the end of June 1985 there were 1577 women in prison, compared with 45,926 men. Table 1 compares the available accommodation and population of each of the six types of prison establishment. The table demonstrates clearly that overcrowding is concentrated almost exclusively in local prisons and remand centres. While over 17,000 prisoners in such establishments share cells designed by the Victorians for single occupation, the majority of prisons are not particularly overcrowded. I will argue later in this paper that this is a policy choice on the part of the prison authorities. No recent social profiles of the prison population are available, but the vast majority of prisoners are working-class and many have been unemployed prior to their conviction. In Britain, fine defaulters are still imprisoned, though fining those dependent on state benefits is blatantly unrealistic, and failure to pay maintenance is still an imprisonable offence. The debtors’ prisons of the last century are still with us. An increasing number of prisoners are black or from other ethnic minorities. In the United States over half of all prisoners are black and extrapolating to the end of this century, a similar situation may prevail in Britain’s gaols. Contrary to popular belief, three-quarters of sentenced prisoners have been convicted of non-violent offences with short sentences for petty theft accounting for a large proportion of that number. Just under a third of prisoners are under the age of 21. In order to accommodate just under 50,000 prisoners, the prison system employs about 27,000 staff. Of these, about 18,000 are uniformed officers. 3 Between 1979 and 1984, the number of prison officers increased by 15 per cent: in absolute terms, more prison officers were recruited than prisoners.4 A new recruiting drive is in progress, and by 1988 a further 6000 staff will join this number. Uniformed prison officers are, with overtime, among the best paid manual workers in the country. Table 1. Accommodation Prison type
An Expansionary
System
Figure 1 traces the consistent growth of both prison population and the official ‘normal’ accommodation since the war. By contrast, the prison population between the wars was roughly one-third its present level, and it rose and fell only marginally year by year. Before the First World War, Home Secretary Winston Churchill used powers of amnesty to encourage a halving of the prison population in the course of a decade.5 The fact that there is nothing inevitable in a rising number of prisoners is demonstrated by the example of penal policy in the Netherlands. Over the past 25 years or so, the Dutch have reduced their prison population by three-quarters from an original level which was broadly equivalent to that of England and Wales. This is the result of a definite decision by the Dutch authorities, in particular by public prosecutors and by judges, to strictly limit the use of incarceration.6 Other countries, notably Japan and Sweden, have consistently maintained a much lower level of imprisonment than has been the case in the U.K. The gap between the reliance upon prison in these islands and that of our colleagues in the European Community is shown in both Figure 2 and Table 2. Figure 2 is based on average prison population; Table 2 on the number ofpeople received into prison each year. It will be seen that, judged either by utilization or by throughput, our record is without close parallel. It could, of course, be argued that the Dutch, the Japanese and others pay a price for their lower use of imprisonment in higher rates of crime. As countries differ in their definitions of criminal acts and, more importantly, reporting and recording practices by the police vary widely, it is difficult to make such international comparisons. However, in so far as it is possible to make a judgement, there seems little relationship between a nation’s reliance upon prison and its rate of crime. Countries such as the United States, the Soviet Union and South Africa (which have a higher rate of imprisonment than Britain) do not notably enjoy a lower rate of crime. In terms of
and prison population, June 1985 No.’
Accommodation
Local prison Training prisons Detention centres Youth custody centres Remand centres Female establishments (not incl. above) Total ‘Some institutions serve more than one purpose. Source: Home Office
Population
Occupancy rate (%)
The Crisis in the Jails
29
Population
Accommodation
10,000~
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
’
19461946195019521954195619581960196219641966196819701972197419761978198019821984
’
’
’
Source: Home Office
Figure 1. Prison population and accommodation, Table 2. The use of imprisonment European countries
Country U.K. Belgium Italy West Germany Holland Spain France Portugal
in certain
Population (millions)
Nos. imprisoned (1982)
Rate of imprisonment per 100,000 population
55.5 10 54 62 13 37 53 IO
152,248 21,196 128,846 123,395 23,900 56,730 74,427 7762
274 212 207 199 184 153 140 78
Source:NACRO, The Use of Imprisonment-Some August 1985.
Facts and Figures,
personal safety, few people would choose to live in the city once known as New Amsterdam rather than in Amsterdam itself. Table 3 shows the average running costs of different types of British prison. The cost of running the prison system has accelerated rapidly in real terms since 1945. In particular, the ratio of prison officers to prisoners has fallen from just under 1:7 to just over 1:2. This is despite permanent allegations of ‘staff shortage’ and levels of overtime without parallel in the public or private sector. In some
1946-1985 the establishments, 20 hours a week.
rate
of
overtime
exceeds
According to Rod Morgan of the University of Bath, himself a member of a prison board of visitors for 12 years: ‘Prison governors readily admit admit that local manning agreements or the content of so-called ‘essential’ and ‘reserve’ task ‘lists’ owe more to historical precedent, governor strength and local Prison Officers Association committee goodwill than rational planning’.’
The Treasury has also given credence to the view that restrictive practices prevent the efficient use of staff: ‘Productivity within the prison service, as measured (crudely)by the rate of staffto inmates,has been declining for some time. There is accordingly a need to consider whether rigidities in the schedules of work and management of staff have contributed to this. . . it is important that the prison service should use its manpower more e&iently and make it more adaptable to the needs of the future’.*
Although the Prison Officers’ Association undoubtedly enjoys a very powerful position relative to Prison Governors, there are more fundamental reasons why the prison system is both unnecessarily costly and fails to deliver a humane service to prisoners. These include the excessive emphasis upon security and the mis-match between tasks and resources in the local prisons vis-h-vis the long-term training prisons.
June 1986
Long Range Planning Vol. 19
Great Britain -uxembourg ltal
Fran1ce Belqium Denmark
Portl
Ireland
-
Spain
Fee Netherlands
83.9
-
-
L
104.4 -
-
78.0
-
76.3
- 74.2
-
72.0
-
70.0
-
68.6
47.6
44.3
II 40.0
31.0
Source: Council of Europe
Figure 2. Prison population per 100,000 total population in the countries of the E.E.C. (February 1984)
Security and Resource
Allocation
To take the security issue first, it may appear to strike at the very r&on d’8tre of a custodial system to argue that the system places ‘excessive emphasis’ upon security. And it is true that the question ‘How much security do we require?’ is not capable of a unique resolution. No two people would take the same view of the level of ‘acceptable’ risk. However, it is matter of fact not speculation, that, as Table 4 shows, definitions of the security categorization of prisoners (and hence of staffing levels in prisons) differ between the four prison department regions. The South West, for example, has twice the proportion of its prison population in the two highrisk security classifications as does the Midlands. According to the independent Chief Inspector of Prisons : ‘In the last resort, it is the availability of accommodation that usually determines an inmate’s security categorization’.’ This is confirmed by the figures in Table 4. If the three other regions were to categorize prisoners in line with the Midlands, more than &Om a year would be saved in staff costs
alone. This would then become available where it is most needed; in the urban local prisons and remand centres. The problems of these institutions are only imperfectly captured by considering the extent of overcrowding. These are extremely busy prisons. Many of the larger local prisons have in excess of 40,000 prisoner movements annually. Each reception and transfer requires prison officers as escorts and interminable paper-filling. It is the absence of prison officers whilst escorting prisoners to and from court which explains the ‘shortage’ of staff from prison landings, workshops and class-rooms. Some alleviation of these pressures could be achieved if the functions of training prisons were altered. Some of the most damaging effect of imprisonment are caused by the fact that prisoners are routinely transferred to establishments away from their family and friends. If some of the existing training prisons were to become ‘locals’, this effect could be minimized at the same time as reducing the stress on the existing local prisons.
The Crisis in the Jails
31
Table 3. The running costs of prisons Average weekly cost per prisoner by type of establishment and region, 1983-I 984 Local prisons and remand centres Top-security dispersal prisons Category 8 training prisons Category C training prisons Open adult prisons Closed youth establishments Open youth establishments Female establishments All establishments NA: not applicable
All regions
North
Midlands
SE
SW
216 478 239 178 144 254 283 330 234
188 394 NA 157 126 232 258 224 209
220 512 227 170 145 242 305 NA 221
238 730 238 213 147 280 305 436 264
225 441 249 202 185 278 338 NA 244
Source: Home Office, Prison Department Financial Report 1983-l 984 (1985).
Table 4. Regional
security categories Category(%)
Region Midland: prisons prisoners Northern: prisons prisoners South-east: prisons prisoners South-west: prisons prisoners
A
B
C
D
1 .o 1.6 1 .I 1.4
19.4 14.8 33.3 21.7 40.9 29.7 40.1 30.8
51.5 59.1 45.0 58.2 36.4 44.5 46.0 50.4
29.0 25.0 21.7 18.5 22.7 24.7 13.9 17.3
(percentages independently rounded) Source: Hansard, 19 January 1984, cc. 281-2. Key:
Category A:
Category 0
:
Category C:
Category 0:
Prisoners whose escape would be highly dangerous to the public or the police or to the security of the State. The 300 or so Category A prisoners are held for the most part in top-security ‘dispersal’ prisons along with a much larger number of Category 6 prisoners. There are no Category A prisons as such. Prisoners for whom the very highest conditions of securitv are not necessary, but for whom escape must be made very difficult. Prisoners who cannot be trusted in open conditions, but who do not have the ability or resources to make a determined escape attempt. Those who can be reasonably trusted to serve their sentence in open conditions.
What Prisons are For Viewed from a utilitarian perspective, there are three classic functions of the prison system: to deter; to incapacitate and to reform. Much social science research effort has been invested in measuring these effects. The results are almost uniformly negative. There is some deterrence, but it is largely discounted by the offender’s assessment of the chances of apprehension. lo (Since, for example, the clear-up rate for burglaries in London is only 7 per cent, the deterrent effect of punishment would be almost entirely discounted by the rational ‘profit-maximizing’ offender.) There is, by definition, some containment-but relative to the incidence of crime as a whole the effect is at best marginal.” In America, mandatory minimum prison sentences have been
introduced in recent years in several states. They have succeeded in dramatically escalating the number of prisoners, but have had little or no discernible impact on the level of crime. The greatest volume of criminological research has concentrated, however, on measuring the effect of imprisonment upon future offending. Although the design of much of this research is not very sophisticated (the majority of studies use a standard 2 year follow-up after release and do not differentiate offences by seriousness) the findings may be summarized briefly. No custodial ‘treatment’ can convincingly demonstrate a greater effect than any other or, indeed, than no treatment at all. Long sentences are no more effective than short ones.‘* Such findings call into question many aspects of the prison system. Since the last century, the prison system has been based upon a ‘treatment’ or ‘training’ regime, even if some of the methods of enforcing the treatment we would now consider barbaric. The current Prison Rule 1 insists: ‘The purpose of the training and treatment of convicted prisoners shall be to encourage and assist them to lead a good and useful life’.13 The system of release on parole licence is premised upon prisoners reaching a measurable ‘peak’ in their ‘training’; an optimum point at which the prison system has maximized its effectiveness. The distinction between ‘local’ and ‘training’ prisons also assumes that there is some recognizable training. The failure of criminological research to reveal any rehabilitative effects of imprisonment has led to a search for an alternative rationalization for incarceration. Since social scientists, like their colleagues in the natural sciences, abhor a vacuum, there has emerged the so-called ‘just deserts’ or ‘justice’ model. Simply stated, this implies that the purpose of imprisonment is punishment. Claims for a more positive approach to custody are flawed both in theory and in practice. Unfortunately, there is no logical nexus between any one offence and any one sentence or any one custodial regime. However, one consequence of the
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Long Range Planning Vol. 19
June 1986
justice model is the view that, since prison can exert no benefit for good, there is no justification for prison regimes and rules differing from standards in the community at large. Prison, in other words, should be ‘normalized’. Prisoners should enjoy the same rights as all other citizens. The provision of services within prison should be incorporated as far as possible with those existing in society as a whole.14 However, in itself, the ‘justice model’ affords little indication of the proper use of imprisonment and the size of the prison system. Indeed, other than a distaste for executive interference with the effective length of sentences (for example, the parole system) there is little in common between advocates or ‘justice’ in this country and in the United States. Nevertheless, to pose the question in this form does bring to the fore the central truth about penal policy; i.e. that the government can choose whatever level of incarceration it wishes and the level of resources it wishes to spend. In other words, and contrary to the impression given by the Home Office, the prison population is not simply determined by the ‘free market’ of thousands of individual sentencing and remand decisions by the courts. At least, in a downward direction, the prison population can be supply led.
Choosing
the Future
It is fair to admit that attempts to trace the impact of available accommodation on the numbers of prisoners have not proved statistically meaningful. However, few would doubt that a prison building programme of the type currently under way in this country sends an unmistakable signal to the courts. At the same time, there is at least one country which operates a quota system of prison places dependent upon gaol capacity (rather like queueing for a hospital bed). E ven in England, the courts are supposed to check if a place in a detention centre is available before passing such a sentence. Nevertheless, it may be argued that a fundamental constitutional principle is imperilled if the executive were to interfere with the sentencing policy of the judiciary. However, the power to grant an amnesty is already on the statute books as a result of recent Conservative legislation. I5 Furthermore, it is the duty of the executive to set the parameters of judicial discretion, that is to say, by determining which offences are imprisonable and in what circumstances, and by setting maximum penalties. This is a legitimate matter of political choice. There is no reason in law or in logic why a ceiling should not be set upon the number of prisoners just as it is for the number of patients treated annually by the NHS or for the number of students enabled to enter higher education. The notion of a ‘quota’ could indeed be extended by applying a ‘budget’ of prison sentences which each
court could use in the course of a year. Within that budget, courts would enjoy total freedom in sentencing in individual cases. However, it would be for the state to decide the overall use of incarceration. Some idea of the current range of sentencing practice is given in Table 5. Similar disparities would be found for the use of remands in custody or on bail. Not only is this fundamentally unjust, but it indicates the potential which exists for reducing the prison population without exciting a popular outcry. If all courts were to reduce their use of custody to that of Northumberland or Gwent, the prison population could be reduced by at least 6000 people. It defies belief that what is acceptable to the people of Warwickshire would not be possible in the neighbouring county of Oxfordshire. The Home Office projections cited at the beginning of this paper may be criticized not only for their palpable error. The real failure of such forecasts is that they deny the crucial element of policy choice which lies behind the prison population. The choice of an expanding system is most apparent in the present government’s prison building programme.
The Case Against New Prisons In contrast to the virtual standstill in other forms of construction, Britain is currently in the middle of a vast boom in new prison building. The government is investing L370m in 17 new gaols, the largest building programme this century. The new prisons have received little attention in Parliament, perhaps because MPs now welcome any form of central government investment in their constituencies. However, there are important reasons for believing that the building programme is not a rational Table 5. Rates of imprisonment magistrates courts in 1982
in selected
Adult male offenders convicted of indictable offences and sentenced to immediate imprisonment in magistrates’ courts (as a percentage of total sentences) Area
%
Oxfordshire Devon Dorset East Sussex North Yorkshire Inner London West Midlands Merseyside Buckinghamshire Staffordshire Warwickshire Northumberland Gwent
21.3 14.7 14.5 13.7 13.0 10.2 9.1 8.4 6.7 6.6 6.0 5.9 5.3
National average
9.7
Source: UnequalBefore the Law: a Judicial Geography of England & Wales, Radical Alternatives to Prison, 1984.
The Crisis in the Jails response to rising crime rates and an increasingly decrepit penal estate. It is of course at first sight contradictory to argue against new prison building given the acknowledged pressures caused by overcrowding. Yet, it will have been obvious from what has been argued earlier that the problem in this country is not so much one of too few prisons but of too many prisoners. For example, nearly one in five of all prisoners is technically (and, in many cases, actually) innocent. The numbers of these remand prisoners could be substantially reduced by diminishing waiting times for trial and by establishing a network of bail hostels for those with no permanent address. There is also a strong case for transferring resources from the prison system to the various ‘alternatives to custody’. Most such alternatives are far cheaper than prison and no less effective. However, were we to reduce our average length of sentences in line with the prevailing mood in Europe, the effect on the prison population would be even greater and the rationale for new prison constructions would disappear. It is this argument which led the Economist newspaper to dismiss the building programme in the most trenchant terms as ‘a politician’s ramp, and a sad waste of public money’.16 New prisons are major and enduring civil engineering projects. Most of the prisons which are to be found in our cities date from over a century ago. Pentonville was constructed in 1842; Leeds in 1847; Birmingham in 1860 and Manchester in 1869. Prisons also endure long past their supposed lifespan: both Dartmoor and Oxford were first officially condemned before World War II, yet both continue in operation today. For that reason, the decisions currently being taken about new prisons will determine the shape and size of the penal system well into the 21st century and beyond. However, we can be far less certain what use will be made of these new prisons. For, as we have seen earlier, if predicting the total size of the prison population on the basis of current sentencing trends is an extremely difficult task, it need hardly be added that predicting the size of the component parts of that population is even more subject to error. For this reason, prisons constructed (and designed) for one purpose are frequently brought into commission for a quite different purpose. Top-security Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight was originally scheduled to be a low-security gaol. Moreover, in view of the unpredicted effects of the 1982 Criminal Justice Act (particularly the relative unpopularity of the ‘short, sharp shock’ amongst magistrates) the government is rapidly converting detention centres into youth custody centres. The
effects
of
these
changes
in
function
are
33
frequently calamitous. Because of inappropriate design, staffing levels (and hence running costs) are much higher. The outbreak of suicides and selfmutilations in Holloway women’s prison may also be attributed in no small part to design faults. An interesting case-study of the Home Office’s inability to plan effectively is provided by the gaol currently under construction at Full Sutton in the Vale of York. Over the last 35 years,’ a whole series of different proposals have been made for Full Sutton: 1949 1964 1968
1972
1983 1984
Home Office propose a borstal and camp; Home Office propose two prisons, one open with 500 prisoners and one closed for 300 prisoners; Home Offke proposed two closed prisons (one Category B for 450 men, one Category C for 750 men) ; Home Office propose two closed prisons (one top-security ‘dispersal’ prison and one Category C, each for between 450 and 500 prisoners); Home Office start construction on the dispersal prison only (to accommodate 447 men); Top Home Office committee recommends phasing out of dispersal prisons.” Home Office admits Full Sutton may never operate as a dispersal. ‘13
No wonder the Prison Department Official responsible for the prison building programme conceded: ‘Traditionally the Prison Department has attempted to assess its capital investment needs in terms of population forecast, matched with CNA [Certified Normal Accommodation] estimates. The data on both counts have proved notoriously unreliable”’
Conclusions To summarize, the British prison system is in crisis. That crisis is not simply a question of numbers, but of objectives. The prisons do not contribute more than marginally to the control of crime. Many prison sentences seem not to be proportionate to the gravity of the offence and there are grotesque disparities between one court and another. Indigent offenders appear to be punished for their poverty (contrast the ‘policing’ of Inland Revenue offences uisd-vis social security fraud). Within the system, ill-considered policy choices and the over-emphasis upon security pushes up costs and misdirects resources away from where they are most needed. The prison building programme will (literally) set in concrete this pattern of affairs well into the next century. The government denies that it can affect the size of the prison population and is simply responding to the needs of the courts. (The present administration was of course elected on a ‘law and order’ platform, but it was a Labour Home Secretary, Merlyn Rees, who described the rising number of prisoners as an index of his success in pursuing ‘law and order’.)
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Long Range Planning Vol. 19
June 1986
Therein lies the rub. The crisis in the prisons cannot be abstracted from broader trends in economic and social policy. The planning of penal policy rests ultimately on ideology and political choice. One can sympathize with those Home Office officials forced to wrestle with an almost unmanageable system and with scant basis to plan rationally for the future. The assent of the Treasury to the present bout of prison building is more difficult to excuse.
(7)
NACRO, A Prison System for the Eighties and Beyond (1983).
(8)
Home Office, Inquiry into the UK Prison Services, Vol. Ill. Paper 3, The use of resources within the prison system, 23 January 1979.
(9) Annual Report of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, 1982, H MS0 (1983). (10)
D. Beyleveld, A Bibliography on General Deterrence Research, Saxon House (1979).
(11)
Stephen Brody and Roger Tarling, Taking Offenders out of Circulation, Home Office Research Study 64 (1980).
(12)
S. R. Brody, The Effectiveness of Sentencing-s Review of the Literature, Home Office Research Study 35 (1976). This study, which is probably the most influential work of criminology published in this country in the last twenty years, might more appropriately have been entitled The ineffectiveness of Sentencing.
(13)
The Prison Rules 1964, Statutory Instrument No. 388.
(14)
See, for example, National Association of Probation Officers, Criminal Justictin Afternative Strategy (1985).
popular expression ‘screw’ derives from the mechanism used to increase or decrease the tension of the treadwheel.
(15)
Amongst other places, the power of amnesty is included in the CriminalJustice Act 1982, passed by the present administration.
Stephen Shaw, Why prisons have become a growth industry, Public Money, 4 (2) September (1984).
(16)
The Economist, 6 April (1985).
(17)
Report of the Control Review Comminee, Managing the LongTerm Prison System, H MS0 (1984).
(18)
In correspondence with the author.
(19)
Prison Reform Trust, The Bogus Numbers Game:a critique of the planned top-security prison at Full Sutton (1983).
References and Notes (1) Home Office Statistical Bulletin 8184, Projections of Trends in the Prison Population to 1992.
(2) A forecast first made at the 1983 Conservative Party Conference. (3) The word ‘warder’ was officially abolished in the 1920s. The
(4)
(5) Andrew Rutherford, Prisons and the Process of Justice: The Reductionist Challenge, Heinemann (1984). (6)
David Downes, The origins and consequences of Dutch penal policy since 1945, British Journal of Criminology, 22, October (1982).