The Prison Population
| Published date | 01 October 2021 |
| Author | VICTOR BAILEY |
| Date | 01 October 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12420 |
The Howard Journal Vol60 No S1. October 2021 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12420
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 56–68
The Prison Population
VICTOR BAILEY
Professor of Modern British History, University of Kansas, USA
Abstract: In 1921 the Howard Journal recorded a steep drop in the annual number of
prisoners received into prison over the past decade. We now know that this abatement of
imprisonment was but part of a remarkable, 60-year period of ‘decarceration’ between
1880 and 1939. Yet we also know that the daily average population of prisoners rose
from 11,000 in the late 1930s to 84,000 in 2008, and still hovers around the 80,000
mark today. This article explores the rise in the prison population over the last century in
five stages of ascent, in conjunction with the sentencing and penal policy, and Howard
League for Penal Reform advocacy, which wereassociated with each stage. T hepressure
of numbers has been the most persistent barrier to improving prison conditions and the ef-
ficacy of imprisonment. How to reverse the seemingly inexorable rise in prison population
remains the key question for sentencing and penal policy.
Keywords: penal history; prison population; sentencing
‘The English prison population’, the entry appearing in the Howard Jour-
nal in 1921 (Anon 1921), examined the statistics to be found in the, then,
recent annual report of the English Prison Commissioners. Two figures
were germane: the ‘flow’ or total number of people received into prison
throughout the year; and the ‘stock’ or annual daily average prison pop-
ulation. These figures incorporated (until 1948 when the distinction was
abandoned) both sentences of imprisonment, which were by law no more
than two years in length and typically much shorter, and the longer sen-
tences of penal servitude served in convict prisons. Forty thousand prison-
ers had been received into prison on conviction during the year 1920/1.
By comparison, the figure of receptions during 1904/5 had been close to
198,000, or five times larger. This decrease in prison commitments, the
Journal recognised, was due in part to the Criminal Justice (Administra-
tion) Act 1914, which let magistrates give time for payment of fines. Before
1914, between 75,000 and 100,000 persons were imprisoned every year for
inability to pay their fines; in 1920/1, the number had fallen to 11,950. It is
surprising that more was not made in the Journal entry of this remarkable
plunge in the number of prison receptions (and of the daily average prison
population, which the entry largely ignored), or of the golden opportunity
it presented for improving the staff-to-prisoner ratio, for the classification
and adaptation of prisons to new purposes, or for the permanent closure
56
C
2021 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
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