Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Foreword
- Introduction
- PART I IN THE BEGINNING, 600–1500
- PART II SQUALOR CARCERIS, 1500–1750
- PART III EXPERIMENTATION WITH IMPRISONMENT, 1750–1863
- PART IV PUNISH AND BE DAMNED, 1863–1895
- PART V THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT, 1895–1965
- PART VI SAFE AND SECURE? 1965–2018
- 33 The Search for Security
- 34 Crying Woolf
- 35 Tea-Bags for the Chaplain
- 36 The Old Imprisonment Blues
- Bibliography
- Index
34 - Crying Woolf
from PART VI - SAFE AND SECURE? 1965–2018
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 September 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Foreword
- Introduction
- PART I IN THE BEGINNING, 600–1500
- PART II SQUALOR CARCERIS, 1500–1750
- PART III EXPERIMENTATION WITH IMPRISONMENT, 1750–1863
- PART IV PUNISH AND BE DAMNED, 1863–1895
- PART V THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT, 1895–1965
- PART VI SAFE AND SECURE? 1965–2018
- 33 The Search for Security
- 34 Crying Woolf
- 35 Tea-Bags for the Chaplain
- 36 The Old Imprisonment Blues
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
As the manager of a large penal dustbin I am driven to write as my patience and tolerance are finally exhausted. I did not join the prison service to manage overcrowded cattle-pens, nor … to run a prison where the interests of the individuals have to be sacrificed continually to the interests of the institution, nor did I join to be a member of a service where staff that I admire are forced to run a society that debases … I am aware that any gesture I would make would in all probability be futile, but if I do not stand up I shall be like a political party putting pursuance of power before humanity.
John McCarthy, governor of HMP Wormwood ScrubsWoolf 's inquiry was a model of thorough, objective investigation, reaching sound conclusions based on intelligent consideration of the evidence … The first comprehensive statement on prisons for decades … it created new hope for prison governors as well as providing inspiration for those who had been brought up in the reformative tradition of borstals … who had been recruited with a mission to rehabilitate, but had found themselves thwarted by overcrowding, poor conditions and an increasing sense of hopelessness, made worse by an intransigent Prison Officers’ Association determined to obstruct.
Derek Lewis, Director-GeneralIn April 1990 a series of riots convulsed several penal institutions. Some of the worst features of the prison system were beginning to be tackled and intransigent problems were at last being confronted. As often happens in times of change, improvements engendered increased instability which made prisons particularly vulnerable to disturbances. The six most serious took place in two YOIs, Glen Parva and Pucklechurch, and in four prisons, Dartmoor, Cardiff, Bristol and, first in time and most serious of all, Manchester Strangeways.
A fine construction when it was opened in 1868 as a local prison, Strangeways reflected the confidence so characteristic of Victorian England. Of radial design with a central rotunda from which emanated six spokes, five wings containing the cells, and a sixth housing the administrative offices and the chapel, it was monumental, the largest British prison and one of the largest in Europe. By 1990 it was dilapidated and overcrowded.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Shades of the Prison HouseA History of Incarceration in the British Isles, pp. 483 - 495Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2019