Woolf: In Retrospect and Prospect
| Published date | 01 September 1991 |
| Date | 01 September 1991 |
| Author | Rod Morgan |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1991.tb02664.x |
REPORTS
Woolf:
In
Retrospect
and
Prospect
Rod
Morgan*
Lord Justice Woolf's report
on
the
Prison
Disfurbances
April
1990'
received
a
good press when
it
was published on
25
February
1991.
The Home Secretary
announced that its recommendations were to be the subject
of
a White Paper
in
thc summer.
It
is, of course, too early to say what impact the Report
will
make
on prisons policy. What can be assessed
at
this stage is the importance of the inquiry
process itself.
As
an insider
in
that process
I
cannot easily claim impartiality. Never-
theless,
I
believe that the manner
in
which the inquiry was conducted significantly
opened up the prisons debate and provides a model which future inquiries might
copy. Certainly, the recently appointcd Royal Commission on thc Criminal Justice
System could, with advantage, emulate aspects of the Woolf recipe. Following this
basic theme, this article addresses three issues. First, to describe and explain the
overall strategy adopted by the Woolf Inquiry. Second, to outline some of the
problems encountered by the Inquiry and the measures taken
to
try
and overconic
them. Third,
to
consider generally how successful the Inquiry was
in
realising the
ambitious task
it
set itself.
One further word is necessary by way of introduction. What follows
is
more than
a personal viewpoint.
I
do not subscribe
to
the view that the deliberations
of
the
jury room must remain forever secret. Indeed,
I
think our understanding ofdecision-
making and policy formation would benefit from franker (which necessarily means
more open) scrutiny of the processes, including those adopted by inquiries, to which
government regularly resorts. Nevertheless,
I
accept that imaginative deliberation
by teams of policy advisers depends crucially on trust; confidence and courtesy
demands that some transactions are not made public.
It
is a tribute to thc open manncr
in
which the Woolf Inquiry was conducted that
I
have been able to write this piccc,
without having to confront those dilemmas of secrecy which all too often
in
Britain
constrain those outsiders who, like myself, become, for a brief period, insiders.
Most of what follows can be verified by consulting the documents which the Woolf
Inquiry brought into the public domain.
On Being an Assessor
I
was
in
Hong Kong when Strangeways Prison
in
Manchester erupted
in
the most
serious and, as
it
turned out, longest prison disturbance
in
English penal history.
Had
I
bcen at home
I
think
it
virtually
certain that
I
would not have been invited
to becomc one of thrcc assessors to the Inquiry. When
I
returned home,
my
desk
was littered
with
ycllow slips rccording requests from journalists that
I
comment
publicly on the riot. But, uncharacteristically,
I
had been silcnt. Thus, apparently,
I
was a suitable candidate to balance the Woolf assessor tickct which by that stage
*Professor
of
Criminal Justice, Faculty
of
Law,
University
of
Bristol
and
Assessor
to thc
Woolf
Inquiry.
Prison
Disttrrbarrces
Auril
1990.
Criintl
1456
(London:
HMSO.
1991).
ReDort
of
an
Inauirv
bv
the
I
Rt Hon
Lord
Justice
W*oolf(Parts
I
and
11)
and'tlis
Honour Judge Stcphcn 'fumirn (Part
li)
[her&ftcr
'Woolf'1.
Tlic
Moilerit
Lmv
Review
54:5
Septeiiibcr
IYY
I
0026-7961
713
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