The English Prison System

by Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise

The proposition of Mr. Jeremy Bentham for a new and less expensive mode of employing and reforming convicts, by the construction of a large establishment, called by him a "Panopticon," appears to have diverted public attention from the real end and object of imprisonment; and this proposition, being finally abandoned in 1810, led to the consideration of fresh plans, which ended in a system of so-called "Classification" as established in 1822, by the Act of 4th George IV., Cap. 64. Until Mr. Crawford's visit to the United States, separate confinement, though established in 1775, and only ceasing to be enforced when broken in upon by numbers for whom the accommodation was insufficient, appears to have been almost entirely lost sight of. An approximation to it existed at Millbank since the completion of that Prison in 1821, and a fair example of the system had been in operation at Glasgow since the year 1824. It is very doubtful, however, after the enormous expenditure made to effect classification, whether these traces of the system would have rescued it from oblivion without the aid derived from its practical development in the United States, and the concurrent testimony given in its favour by eminent men in France, Prussia, and Belgium.

By some curious growth of sentiment, which cannot be accurately traced, Classification rather than Separation, became the leading idea of those interested in prison reform. Howard was quoted as the authority for Classification, but it must be remembered that Howard was chiefly moved by the physical suffering of prisoners, and, with him, classification did not mean much more than to separate the debtor from the felon, the guilty from the innocent, the men from the women, and the adult from the child,—and this by a system of separate confinement described in the Act of 1778. The classification in the sense in which it affected the movement of opinion in the first quarter of the last century went further than this. It seems to have assumed that if prisoners in the same categories, and, therefore, presumably of more or less the same moral characters, were associated together in common rooms or dormitories, no evil results were likely to follow, and facilities for labour, according to Bentham's ideas, would be greatly improved; and thus we find that in 1823, the Act of 4 Geo. IV., c. 64, in so far as discipline is concerned, gave effect mainly to this principle. Many extensive and important prisons were erected in conformity with this Act, notably at Maidstone, Derby, Westminster, Chelmsford, and Leicester, in which the Governor's house was usually placed in the centre with detached blocks of cells radiating from it. The average size of the cells was only about eight feet by five feet, with a day room and yard of proportionate size for each different class or category of prisoners. The only inspection was from the central building, and there was no interference with the unrestricted association of prisoners, and the greatest neglect, disorder, or irregularities might go on unperceived; and it soon became manifest that, to whatever extent classification might be carried, there was no moral standard by which it could be regulated, nor any limit short of individual separation that could secure any single prisoner from contamination. The mischievous effect of this Act was soon condemned by public opinion, and two Parliamentary inquiries were held in 1832 and 1836, which concurred in the strong opinion that more efficient regulation should be established in order to save all prisoners, especially the untried, from the frightful contamination resulting from unrestricted intercourse. It was at this time that the great controversy between the so-called "Silent" and "Separate" Systems sprang up in the United States, and its echo was felt throughout the civilized world. The rival systems of Auburn and of Philadelphia became the historic battleground in which was fought out the great and burning controversy which centred round the question of the proper treatment of prisoners, and established the importance of the now accepted principle that prison discipline shall be reformatory at least to this extent, viz:—that the prisoner shall not be exposed to contamination by his fellows. The Silent System at Auburn meant a separate cell at night, and work in association by day under a Rule of Silence. The Separate System at Philadelphia meant entire separation both by night and day. The criticism on the former was that the Rule of Silence could only be maintained by harshness and severity, and the criticism of the latter was that continuous separation for long periods was unnatural and bad, both for body and mind. Mr. Crawford, one of the newly-created Inspectors under an Act of 1835, was sent to America to examine and report upon the rival Systems. MM. De Beaumont and De Tocqueville went from France; Dr. Julius and M. Mittermeyer from Prussia; and M. Ducpetiaux from Belgium. All travelled at the same time through the United States for the same purpose, and their practically unanimous views in favour of the principle of separate confinement had a great effect on public opinion throughout Europe. In England, Lord John Russell, then Home Secretary, issued a circular to Magistrates calling attention to its advantages, and in 1839 an important Act was passed containing a permissive Clause to render it legal to adopt the separate confinement of prisoners. It was, however, an express condition that no cell should be used for such purpose "which was not certified to be of such a size, and ventilated, warmed, and fitted up in such a manner as might be required by a due regard to health." Also that a prisoner should be furnished with the means of religious and moral instruction, with "books and labour or employment." These were the first substantial steps taken in England since 1775 for establishing separate confinement. No prison in Great Britain, excepting perhaps that at Glasgow, was of a construction to enable magistrates to take advantage of the clause referred to. Lord John Russell, therefore, determined on the erection of a model prison at Pentonville.

It was completed in 1842, and a strong body of Commissioners was appointed by the Secretary of State to work out the great experiment. The Commissioners, in their Report for 1847, gave it as their final and deliberate opinion that the separation of one prisoner from another was the only sound basis upon which a reformatory discipline could be established with any reasonable hope of success. The satisfactory progress of the experiment, and the confidence of the public in the Commissioners, under whose superintendence the experiment had been conducted, led to a general desire for its adoption throughout the country, and within a very few years many Prisons which had been recently erected for a Classification System were altered.

In 1850, a Select Committee of the House of Commons, presided over by Sir George Grey, the then Home Secretary, expressed the opinion that, under proper regulation and control, separate confinement is more efficient than any other system which has yet been tried, both in deterring from crime and in promoting reformation, but that it should not be enforced for a longer period than twelve months; and that hard labour is not incompatible with individual separation.

The student of the English Prison System must be careful to bear in mind at this juncture that the Secretary of State was not, as he now is, the supreme head of all Prisons in the country. He only had control over prisons where persons sentenced to Transportation might be confined. Pentonville, therefore, was not a local prison to which prisoners of the Metropolis would be committed in the ordinary course, but was specially built in order that an experiment of the System of Separate Confinement might be made by the authority of the Government under the best possible direction and superintendence. The corpus on which this experiment was made were first offenders between eighteen and thirty-five sentenced to Transportation, for whom a period, not to be prolonged beyond eighteen months, should be one of instruction and probation, rather than of severe punishment before the convict was shipped to Van Diemen's Land. Everything was done to render the separation real and complete: exercise was taken in separate yards, and masks were worn to prevent recognition. While primarily the Pentonville system was applied to convicts only, and became in fact the basis of our penal servitude system, as explained in the former chapter, yet it led indirectly to the establishment of the separate system in Local Prisons throughout the country. Although the Secretary of State had no control over the administration of Local Prisons, yet, apart from the influence which the Secretary of State would naturally exercise in directing public opinion in such a matter, an Act of 1835 had made provision that all Rules framed by local Justices for Prisons should be subject to his approval; and the Act of 1844 authorised the appointment of a Surveyor General of Prisons to aid the Secretary of State by ensuring that due attention was given by local Authorities to the requirements of proper prison construction as prescribed by Act of Parliament.

Thus the Separate System became gradually established throughout the country, both for convicts in the early stage of their imprisonment, and for those committed to the County and Borough Gaols, although uniformity was very far from being established owing to the absence of any central control. It was this absence of uniformity which led later, as we shall see, to the complete centralization of the Prison System, which was effected finally by the Prison Act, 1877.

At the same time, two principal features of our prison system—Separate Confinement and Hard Labour—began to assume a definite shape at this period, which has been retained, subject to modification, until the present day. The duration of the period of Separate Confinement, and the regulation of the task of hard labour, consistently with cellular confinement, remained the problem of prison administration for many years, and cannot yet be said to be finally settled. There will be found running through all this period an earnest attempt to reconcile the claims of the two admitted objects of imprisonment, viz:—deterrence and reform. On the one hand there was strict separation, and on the other hand it was ordained that provision should be made in every prison for enforcing sentences of hard labour as enjoined by the Act of 1823, although that Act, as already stated, did not contemplate separate confinement, but a system of associated labour, and the word "Hard Labour" only assumed its narrow and technical meaning when the advocates of the Separate System, as the means of reformation, were unwilling altogether to lose sight of the necessity for some deterrence in the shape of hard work. The question thus arose, and was warmly agitated, as to how hard labour could be adapted to the cellular system, and we find great ingenuity expended in devising forms of labour, such as cranks and treadwheels, in which each prisoner occupied a separate compartment. These particular forms of labour were recognized as "hard labour" par excellence, and as necessary for the due punishment of the offender, consistently with his occupation of a separate cell by day and night. With these problems unsettled: with a strange and general ignorance of the true principles of punishment: with conflicting views and diverse authorities, it is not to be wondered at that, during the following years, our Local Prison System was in a very confused and chaotic state, although nominally professing adhesion to prescribed principles, until inquiry made by Committees of the House of Commons and House of Lords, respectively, into the state of Local Prisons, in 1850 and 1863, led practically to the modern Prison System.

The Committee of 1850 condemned the state of existing prisons in unmeasured terms, declaring "that proper punishment, separation, or reformation was impossible in them." They anticipated by a quarter of a century the legislation of 1877 by advising the establishment of a Central Authority for enforcing uniformity on the lines of Rules laid down by Parliament. They advised that the Separate System, as carried out at Pentonville, should be generally applied to all prisons, but not for a longer period than twelve months. No action was taken on this Report until, in 1863, a Committee of the House of Lords again condemned the want of uniformity of punishment and treatment of prisoners, and the bad construction of prisons. They again urged that separation should be the rule in all prisons, and strongly advocated greater severity as a means of making punishment really deterrent, and their proposition that prisoners should endure "hard labour, hard fare, and a hard bed," has become historical, and was translated into practice by the Prison Act, 1865, which, for the first time, gave legal sanction to the principle of uniformity, by enacting a code of Rules as a schedule to the Act. These Rules, having statutory authority, were only capable of alteration or repeal by Parliament itself. The great rigidity thus given to the System remained a barrier to real progress, and it was not until 1898, as I shall show later, that an elasticity was given to the System by the repeal of this schedule, by vesting in the Secretary of State the power to make Rules for the government of Prisons, subject to the condition that the new Rules should be laid formally before Parliament before they could be adopted.

However, the Act of 1865 was a great step forward. Prisons still remained under the control of the local Justices, but every prison authority was required to provide separate cells for all the different classes of prisoners. These cells were to be such as could be certified by an Inspector of Prisons that they satisfied all the requirements of the Rules. Elaborate provisions were introduced for regulating "Hard Labour," (a phrase carried on from early Acts of Parliament, framed before the days of scientific accuracy). It was divided into two classes: (1) the treadwheel, shot-drill, crank, capstan, stonebreaking, &c. (2) any other approved form of labour. All prisoners over sixteen were required to be kept to first class labour for at least three months, after which time they would qualify for the second class. Dietaries were to be framed by the Justices, and approved by the Secretary of State, and any Rule they might make was to be subject to the approval of the Secretary of State. If they failed to comply with the Act, the Secretary of State was able to stop the Treasury contribution towards expenses of the Prison. It was also authorised, for the first time, that a prison authority might make a grant in aid of prisoners on discharge. The Schedule to the Act comprises details of the Rules regulating the administration of the Act on matters of Prison treatment. The power of punishment was restricted to Justices and the Governor of the Prison, the latter having power to order an offender to be placed in close confinement for three days on bread and water; the former could order one month in a punishment cell, or, in the case of a convicted felon sentenced to hard labour, could order flogging. Regulations were also made for the use of irons or other forms of mechanical restraint. The important principle was enacted, which has since remained in force, viz:—that no prisoner may be employed in the discipline of the prison, or the service of any officer, or in the service or instruction of any other prisoner.

Many years had not passed before it was perceived that the uniformity of punishment at which the Act aimed was not being secured. It began to be perceived, and most quickly by the criminal classes themselves, that in the different localities the same effect was not being given to the same sentence. Distribution of power among so many Justices—some 2,000 in all—gave occasion to the exercise by them of different views and methods of punishment, with the result that no standard of treatment was maintained, applying equally to all prisons, and severity or leniency of treatment seemed to depend on the accident of the locality in which the offender was arrested. Inquiry showed, also, that the System, besides being inefficient, was extremely costly, and many unnecessary prisons were being maintained, and that local sentiment operated against any effective supervision or control on the part of the Central Authority. These causes, taken in conjunction with an active demand, which found expression in Parliament at the time for the relief of some of the burden of local taxation, led the Government of the day to adopt a policy of complete centralization of the Prison System of the country. This new policy, as embodied in the Prison Act, 1877, resulted then from two causes,—a desire to establish a system of equal and uniform punishment under the direct authority of the State, and, incidentally, to relieve the taxpayer of the burden of maintaining Prisons. It was not to be expected that the local Authorities, naturally jealous of their rights and privileges, would abandon the control of the Prison System without a severe struggle. But the great relief offered to local rates, amounting to about half-a-million pounds per year, was sufficient to overcome opposition. Eventually, the Act transferred the whole of the Prison establishments, and their contents, to the control of the Government. It created a body of Commissioners, appointed by Royal Warrant, to manage the new Department, and placed under them a staff of Inspectors, and of other officers, by whom the control of all those establishments was to be exercised. The Act compelled the local authority to hand over to the Government suitable and sufficient accommodation in each district, the test of sufficiency being the average daily number of prisoners maintained by the local authority during the five previous years. Where such accommodation was in default, the local prison authority was required to pay £120 for every prisoner for whom such accommodation was not handed over. At the same time, compensation was paid by the Government to the local authority which had provided a reasonable amount of accommodation in excess of the maximum of the average numbers received for the five preceding years.