This title, first published in 1981, draws from an extensive range of national and local material, and examines how innovations in policy and administration, while solving problems or setting new objectives, frequently created or disclosed fresh difficulties, and brought different types of people into the administration and management of prisons, whose interests, values and expectations in turn often had significant effects upon penal ideas and their practical applications. Special attention has been paid to the study of recruitment, the work and influence of gaolers, keepers, governors, and highly administrative officials. This comprehensive book will be of interest to students of criminology and history.

This book tells the story of the star class, a segregated division for first offenders in English convict prisons; known informally as ‘star men’, convicts assigned to the division were identified by a red star sewn to their uniforms. ‘Star Men’ in English Convict Prisons, 1879–1948 investigates the origins of the star class in the years leading up to its establishment in 1879, and charts its subsequent development during the late-Victorian, Edwardian, and interwar decades. To what extent did the star class serve to shield ‘gentleman convicts’ from their social inferiors and allow them a measure of privilege? What was the precise nature of the ‘contamination’ by which they and other ‘accidental criminals’ were believed to be threatened? And why, for the first twenty years of its existence, were first offenders convicted of ‘unnatural crimes’ barred from the division? To explore these questions, the book considers the making and implementation of penal policy by senior civil servants and prison administrators, and the daily life and work of prisoners at policy’s receiving end. It re-examines evolving notions of criminality, the competing aims of reformation and deterrence, and the role and changing nature of prison labour. Along the way, readers will encounter an array of star men, including arsonists, abortionists, sex offenders and reprieved murderers, disgraced bankers, light-fingered postmen, bent solicitors, and perjuring policemen. Taking a fresh look at English prison history through converging lenses of class, sexuality, and labour, ‘Star Men’ in English Convict Prisons, 1879-1948 will be of great interest to penal historians and historical criminologists, and to scholars working on related aspects of modern British history.

This book presents a revisionist prison history which brings to the forefront the relationship between gender and policy. It examines women’s prisons in England from the late 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century, drawing attention to the detrimental effect the orthodox closed prison has on penal reform. The text investigates the clash between what was conceptualised as desirable prison policy and the actual implementation and implications of such a penalty on the prisoner. It challenges previous claims made about the invisibility of women prisoners in historical penal policy, and provides an original analysis of the open prison, taking HMP Askham Grange as a case study, where the history of such an initiative is explored and debated.

Ranging from ancient times to the present, a survey of the evolution of the prison explores its relationship to the history of Western criminal law and offers a look at the social world of prisoners over the centuries.

Originally published in 1985, Imprisonment in England and Wales is an account of the changing functions and conditions of imprisonment in England and Wales from the Medieval period to the present day. It is designed both as a text for students and teachers of history, law and social science and as an introduction to the subject for more general readers and is one of the few attempts to provide an overall view of the institution of imprisonment in this country over a period of several centuries. The authors have made use of original sources and other research to provide an accessible account of the subject, combining essential factual detail with an analysis of the use of imprisonment. It is therefore particularly of interest to those approaching the subject for the first time and is also intended to provide guidance for further research into particular areas of the subject. The authors draw upon their respective knowledge of four main periods to show how imprisonment has performed a number of different functions: the punishment and reform of convicted offenders, the coercion of debtors, the custody of persons awaiting trial and more generally the containment of society’s undesirables. At the same time, the institution of imprisonment is put into the context of wider social, political and economic forces, and related to the development of an increasingly centralised and incursive system of criminal law, as well as to the use and disuse of other forms of punishment and legal control. This discussion is supported by an account of the characteristics of prisons, the problems of administration and the implementation of penal and reformative policy.