Prison Service Journal Issue 233 NOVEMBER 2019
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Contents Dr Alana Barton is a Reader in 2 Editorial Comment Criminology at Edge Hill University. Alyson Brown is a History Professor and Associate Head of English, History and Creative Writing at Edge Hill University Allan Brodie is a Senior Investigator The Castle or the Green Field: dilemmas and in Historic England 4 solutions in English prison planning, 1780-1850. Allan Brodie Rhiannon Pickin, is a PhD researcher 10 Prisoner Suicides at the York in crime history and heritage at Leeds Beckett University. Castle Gaol, 1824-1863 Rhiannon Pickin Dr Craig Stafford is a lecturer in 16 The evil is one of the utmost gravity: History, University of Liverpool. female drunkenness and Strangeways Prison, 1869-1875 Dr Craig Stafford Chris Holligan, is Professor in 21 Stigmata of Degeneration Education at the University of the West of Scotland. Suffragette Experience in Scotland’s Perth Prison Chris Holligan Editorial Board Dr Ruth Armstrong Dr Jamie Bennett (Editor) Dr David Maguire University of Cambridge HMPPS University College, London Dr Rachel Bell Professor Anne-Marie McAlinden HMP Send Paul Crossey (Deputy Editor) Queen’s University, Belfast Alli Black HMP Huntercombe Dr Karen Harrison HMP Kirkham Dr Ruth Mann (Reviews Editor) Maggie Bolger HMPPS University of Hull Prison Service College, Newbold Revel Steve Hall William Payne Professor Alyson Brown Independent Independent Edge Hill University Professor Yvonne Jewkes George Pugh Gareth Evans University of Bath HMP Belmarsh Independent Dr Helen Johnston Dr David Scott Dr Ben Crewe University of Hull Open University University of Cambridge Dr Bill Davies Christopher Stacey Dr Sacha Darke Leeds Beckett University Unlock University of Westminster Martin Kettle Ray Taylor Dr Michael Fiddler Church of England HMPPS University of Greenwich Dr Victoria Knight Mike Wheatley Dr Kate Gooch De Montfort University HMPPS University of Bath Monica Lloyd Kim Workman Dr Darren Woodward University of Birmingham Rethinking Crime and Punishment, NZ University Centre, Grimsby Dr Amy Ludlow Dr David Honeywell University of Cambridge University of Durham Jackson Joseph HMP Leyhill Prison Service Journal Issue 233 NOVEMBER 2019 27 Hollywood Rewrites: Dr. Alex Tepperman is an Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at the Popular Film and Prison University of South Carolina Upstate Rebellions, 1930-1939 Dr. Alex Tepperman 35 Constructing the ‘rehabilitative ideal’: Thomas Guiney, Lecturer in Criminology, Oxford Brookes University Revisiting the legacy of the 1959 prison building programme Thomas Guiney 41 Gender Responsive Governance: From Elizabeth Dr Helen Elfleet, Lecturer in Criminology, Edge Hill University Fry To Baroness Jean Corston Dr Helen Elfleet Cover photograph courtesy of Allan Brodie, Senior Investigator in Historic England. The Editorial Board wishes to make clear that the views expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official views or policies of the Prison Service. Printed at HMP Leyhill on 115 gsm and 200 gsm Galerie Art Satin Set in 10 on 13 pt Frutiger Light Circulation approx 6,500 ISSN 0300-3558 „ Crown Copyright 2019 Issue 246 Prison Service Journal 1 Editorial Comment Dr Alana Barton is a Reader in Criminology at Edge Hill University. Alyson Brown is a History Professor and Associate Head of English, History and Creative Writing at Edge Hill University Beginnings are tricky. The search for origins can from small scale, locally (and inconsistently) managed seem like such an existential task that it is best institutions to larger, centrally administered evaded or perhaps given a cursory metaphorical organisations. Moreover, significant changes took place nod. Historians assert that we evade thinking in terms of prison architecture and geographical about past evolutions, developments and roots at location, with new prisons being built on the outskirts, our peril. So, what are the risks in ignoring the rather than in the centres, of towns and cities, where past? We might lapse into thinking about our past they had traditionally been situated. However, in some like another country where others thought and instances old historic castle sites, within the centre of felt and experienced very differently to us. We towns, remained in use. Brodie explores the practical, might walk blindly into supposedly ‘new’ ideas fiscal and symbolic factors that shaped judgements and policies without caution, reserve or safety about the location of prisons and the decisions to nets. Forearmed historically, we are better placed abandon or retain and redevelop castle prisons. to acknowledge when a genuinely different Maintaining the focus on historic castle prison perspective or advance is being offered. We can sites, in the following chapter Rhiannon Pickin be better placed to comprehend the development examines the everyday experiences of prisoners in the of existing social structures, processes, systems 19th century York Castle gaol, discussing suicides in the and institutions, as well as their achievements and prison during the period 1824 to 1836. As Pickin rightly deficiencies. Historians endeavour, but can notes, there is a lack of research on historical prison struggle, to obtain clear perspectives on the past suicides, mainly due to scarcity of original source among complex and contradictory voices and the material. By drawing on both contemporary newspaper eccentric survival of records. The attainment of articles and the York Gaoler’s journals — written by two understanding is a common and collaborative gaolers, James Shepherd and John Noble — Pickin endeavour between those who seek to know the explores the emotional experiences of those past and those who seek to know the present. It is incarcerated in York gaol, they ways in which suicides a task never completed and never perfected. This were reported by gaolers and the media, and how the edition of the Prison Service Journal offers a bodies of prisoners were treated in the aftermath of contribution to historical perspectives on the self-inflicted deaths. Despite the denial of Christian prison and criminal justice issues locally, nationally burial rites afforded to those who committed suicide, and indeed internationally. The range of articles she concludes that there was often genuine sympathy included here which covers over three centuries, from both prison gaolers and the broader public for even by itself, highlights abiding, longstanding those who took their own lives in prison. and determining influences: ideological forces and Keeping with the theme of vulnerable prisoners, what ‘reform’ can mean in practice; financing Craig Stafford discusses the cases of female systems that primarily punish and incarcerate the drunkenness in Strangeways Prison, Manchester, most socially deprived; the pains of confinement; between 1869 and 1875. During the 19th century and distortions within representations of an there was considerable disquiet around the problem of institution that a minority of the population drunkenness in the growing towns and cities, and experience first-hand. female drunkenness specifically was the cause of In the lead article, Allan Brodie presents his heightened concern. Drawing on Strangeways Prison analysis of English prison planning in the 1700s, Registers for females and using the borough of Salford examining the significant social and penal changes that as a case study, Stafford analyses how these concerns took place between the late 18th and mid-19th were manifest at a local level. He looks at the impact of centuries. Focusing specifically on the years between committals for drunkenness for the prison system and, 1780 and 1850, he argues that growing urban moreover, at the social and economic factors that populations and new forms of government during this impacted on those women who were imprisoned for time, led to the transformation of England’s prisons drunkenness related offences. Despite the fact that 2 Prison Service Journal Issue 246 women’s insobriety was constructed as a moral issue, in upon cultural understandings, obscured prisoners’ reality their incarceration was driven by the combined appeals for systemic improvements and absolved state factors of poverty and intensive policing. officials of responsibility. Bringing the discussion of women prisoners into The penultimate article in this edition, by Thomas the 20th century, Chris Holligan examines the Guiney, examines the 1959 white paper, Penal Policy in experiences of suffragette prisoners in Perth Prison, a Changing Society. Guiney argues that this paper Scotland, between 1909 and 1914. Historical studies represented the pinnacle of the ‘rehabilitative ideal’ in have tended to focus on the suffragette movement in post war criminal justice policy in England and Wales. London, effectively ‘silencing’ the experiences of He looks in particular at the impact of the rehabilitative suffragettes outside of the capital. Using prison files for focus on the subsequent prison building programme Scottish suffragette prisoners Holligan focuses on the during the late 1950s and 1960s. He examines the cases of four women — Maude Edwards, Arabella policy making process, from the practical and Scott, Frances Gordon and Janet Arthur — discussing ideological considerations that justified investment in other ways through which suffragettes were ‘silenced’ new prisons, to the penal policy debates and socio- by the state. ‘Physical’ silencing occurred via their economic conditions that shaped the delivery of the imprisonment and the communicative