Recent Book: The Use of Prisons: The English Penal System in Transition
| Date | 01 October 1970 |
| Published date | 01 October 1970 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X7004301020 |
| Author | Keith Devlin |
| Subject Matter | Recent Book |
THE
USE OF
PRISONS
J. E.
HALL-WILLIAMS:
The English Penal System in Transition. Butterworths.
£2l6s.
The main value of this book lies in
its comprehensive review of the place
of imprisonment in the English penal
system. In this major
part
of the book,
Mr Hall-Williams, after giving a brief
history of imprisonment in England
and Wales from earliest times to the
present day, describes the technical
rules relating to the imposition. of
imprisonment, and the use made of
this method of disoosal by the courts.
He also covers the types of prisons
(including some observations upon
modern trends in design) and the
classification of prisoners: then, draw-
ing attention to the different objectives
of sentencers and prison administra-
tors, he deals with some of the main
problems of prison administration,
especially in relation to discipline,
safe custody and security and pri-
soners' work and earnings as well as
with the problems of the prison
community itself and the methods, in
terms
of
treatment and training, which
have been developed to deal with them.
Referring to the aphorism that the true
test of a prison system is what happens
to the
man
when he comes out, he also
considers the problems associated with
release and after care, and in another
chapter covers remission, pardon and
parole: further on in the book he deals
with custodial measures for young
offenders. To round off his survey, he
describes the role, training and con-
ditions of service
of
the
other
prison
population, the prison staff. Finally,
he considers the results
of
prison
custody in a chapter which emphasises
the need for further research in this
area, not least developing statistical
)42
criteria by which the effectiveness of
the prison system might be assessed.
He also points
out
the limitations of
researches based simply upon recon-
viction rates, briefly mentions some
of the follow-up studies and in con-
sidering the pessimistic conclusion
that penal measures are for some
offenders interchangeable (Walker)
and the even more pessimistic view
that
at present they are more or less
irrelevant (Hood), he makes the im-
portant point
that
it is unrealistic to
attempt to assess the success of penal
measures in isolation from the offen-
der's total situation, his home and
surroundings, his employment situa-
tion and the community in which he
lives.
Inevitably in a book which con-
centrates upon imprisonment, the
treatment of the
other
methods
of
disposal, as well as the aims of senten-
cing, and the sentencing process itself,
is less complete. However, there is a
useful chapter on probation and the
section on special classes
of
offender,
viz. recidivists, mentally disturbed
offenders and female offenders, also
deserves special mention.
In the preface, Mr Hall-Williams
poses a number of questions about the
extent to which the penal system is
being transformed and what it is
being changed into, and while, as he
himself admits, this
book
does
not
resolve these queries, it does succeed in
providing an authoritative and well
documented introduction to the study
of
the penal system which will help
informed assessments to be made.
KEITH
DEVLIN
October 1970
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