Report of the Committee on the Prison Disciplinary System
| Author | Stephen Jones,Gillian Douglas |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1986.tb01707.x |
| Published date | 01 September 1986 |
| Date | 01 September 1986 |
REPORTS
OF
COMMITTEES
REPORT
OF
THE
COMMITTEE
ON
THE
PRISON DISCIPLINARY SYSTEM
Introduction
THE
Prior Committee’ was set up by the Home Secretary in
1984
to examine the prison disciplinary system, and has recommended a
revised structure
of
disciplinary bodies and changes to the offences
and punishments which prisoners face.
In recent years, there has been an increasing recognition of the
lack
of
firm evidence
of
the efficacy of penal measures to reduce
deviant behaviour.2 The attention of many of those interested in
prisons and prisoners has in consequence shifted away from
investigation
of
the potential for reform or deterrence which
institutions might possess, to a consideration
of
the extent to which
imprisonment coerces and restricts the liberty of inmates.
A
new
emphasis has developed on the entitlement of prisoners to remain
members
of
society and to enjoy their civil rights in
so
far as this is
consistent with the fact of imprisonment. Since the very notion
of
imprisonment imports the denial of at least some of the citizen’s
normal liberties and freedoms, it could be said that the concept of
prisoners’ rights is paradoxical.
As
Richardson has argued, however,
“[it is] precisely because prisoners must suffer the loss of certain
legal rights [that] they become particularly vulnerable to further
loss, and in order to safeguard their basic human rights their
remaining legal rights require careful specification and even
supplementation.
’73
A
similar approach can be seen in Lord Wilberforce’s statement
in
Raymond
v.
Honey
that “under English law, a convicted
prisoner, in spite of his imprisonment, retains all civil rights which
are not taken away expressly or by necessary impli~ation.”~
Prisoners have increasingly tested this pronouncement in the courts
to see just how far they
do
retain their civil rights. The area where
the courts have been most willing to intervene in prison life and to
uphold prisoners’ rights has been that concerning disciplinary
proceeding^.^
In contrast to their “hands
off
a proach to
appear to consider themselves competent actively to scrutinise
quasi-iudicial determinations of quasi-criminal offences, the outcome
“managerial” decisions such as the denial of parole
?
the courts
Report
of
the Committee
on
the
Prison
Disciplinary System, chaired by
Mr.
P.
Prior,
Cmnd. 9641. For a valuable discussion of some
of
the issues facing the Committee, see
M. Maguire,
J.
Vagg and R. Morgan (eds.),
Accountability
and
Prisons
(1985), Chap. 15.
For
a
full
discussion of
this
issue, see
N.
Walker,
Sentencing
Theory,
Law
and
Practice
(1985), Chap.
6.
G.Richardson in Maguire
et
al.
op.
cif.,
Chap. 1 p.22.
[1983] 1 A.C. 1, 10.
A
useful discussion
of
the cases can be
found
in
E.
Fitzgerald in Maguire
et
al.,
op.
Payne
v.
Lord
Harris
of
Greenwich
[1981] 1 W.L.R.
754.
cit.,
Chap.
2.
617
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