No riots in small prisons

John Papworth

Adapted extract from a letter in the Times

The Times reported that 24 prisoners in the cells of a Doncaster police station were serving their sentences 'in an atmosphere free of the tension and the harsh conditions of a conventional prison', prisoners and officers were on first name terms and officials visiting the unit were 'astonished by the transformation of attitude and the peaceful mixing of what would normally (sic!) become a critical mass.' The Times report concludes that it would have been impossible to apply these conditions to the 1,600 locked in Strangeways prison when the place exploded in violence.

'They were quickly able to restore conditions not by appealing to the goodwill of the prisoners but by cutting their groups into smaller and more manageable units'

Well, of course. But why then is Strangeways being rebuilt? Do we really learn from history that we learn nothing from history? More than 30 years ago Professor Leopold Kohr, in his book 'The Breakdown of Nations', pointed out that after years of trouble in the overcrowded Korean prison camps it began to dawn on the authorities that 'the cause of difficulty was not the incorrigible nature of the communists but the size my emphasis) of the compounds containing them. Once this was recognised, they were quickly able to restore conditions, not by appealing to the goodwill of the prisoners but by cutting their groups into smaller and more manageable units.'

Of course small units cost more to run, but we surely need to ask ourselves whether we want prisoners released back into society after serving a sentence during which they have been treated with humanity, or after years of brutalisation in such hell-holes as Strangeways? It is surely rather late in the day to discover that far from serving the purpose for which our prisons exist they are defeating it.

John Papworth, 24 Abercorn Place, London NW8 9XP (tel 071 286 4366).

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