Section 1.
Are prisons an effective way of doing justice? From the 1960s until the 1980s, episodes of significant
debate occurred discussing prisons’ efficacy in managing crime, let alone in ending it. On this
occasion, the debate ended with a larger, arguably more violent, less effective prison system. Why
was there a strengthening of prisons? Was it that no-one proposed serious alternatives, the timing
of the debate or another reason? A whole series of debates included improving youth offenders’
prisons, ideas about restorative justice and understanding women’s criminalization differently to
men. This opened further debates about having soft prisons and home detention but
simultaneously, more horrible maximum-security prisons. The debate soon broadened out into a
discussion on the efficacy of rehabilitation, the increase in marginalized racial groups in prisons and
numbers convicted for drug offenses. Public discourse on the future of prisons and possible solutions
ended with prisons’ reaffirmation. The outcome of the debate was a complete failure. Certainly,
there were improvements around the edges, such as for juvenile prisons. Nonetheless, prisons
became more brutal and less effective in doing social justice.
I want to trace the debate and unpack this puzzle. I want to focus on the social injustices of targeting
racial groups and the working class with imprisonment. I want to highlight the humanitarian crisis in
prisons, their inefficacy of dealing with crime and the illogical nature of depriving people of their
freedom in a democratic society. I want to look at what newspaper writers, ex-prisoners and court
officials argued on both sides of the debate.
I want to research the extent to which people listened to ex-prisoners, prisoners and prison reform
movements by examining the riot at Hull prison in 1976. This case study would highlight the
humanitarian crisis and brutality in prisons. This riot was part of the wider 1970’s prison crisis, which
was partly sparked because of race. The changing composition of prisons saw a dramatic,
disproportionate increase in the number of African-Americans. Drug use also exploded for
criminalization. I want to look at why the criminal justice system deals with problems for the
marginalized working class with imprisonment, instead of addressing social ills with measures such
as community funding and reform programs outside of prisons.
I want to research who was arguing, successfully, against closing prisons and to suggest why that
was successful. With the debates from the 1960s, many people thought it was possible to imagine a
world without prisons. After the debates, there was a strong sense that there is no alternative. In
other words, there is nothing that the state would pay for that is better than prisons. There is little
evidence that suggests prisons successfully rehabilitate criminals or are an effective crime deterrent.
Alternatives to prisons have not yet had proper funding. Why was this side of the debate successful
against the evidence? The bigger question is why prisons still exist and seem to become more
powerful in the public imagination than they should. I want to research court magistrates’
documents on the matter, questioning to whom they wanted to do justice. Within this I could study
the purposes of imprisonment, sending people to prison as or for punishment, reform programmes
in prison’s success and the purpose of maintaining safety by removing ‘dangerous’ criminals from
the community. Magistrates are close enough to the problem to know that sending people to
prisons does not work. Why then, do magistrates sustain their practical faith in prisons even if they
probably privately think that imprisonment does not work?
I want to highlight social injustices against the working class. I hope to give voice to those targeted
unfairly by prisons, to offer a useful critique of the logic behind imprisonment and to discuss the
prison humanitarian crisis. By assessing the Hull 1976 riot, I will allow space to discuss prisoners’
demands for better conditions. I hope to suggest how researchers could better enact change during
, future opportunities like those between the 1960s and 1980s. I hope to do this by tracing the
arguments in newspapers and pamphlets.
I think that the debates would highlight the conflicting purposes of the justice system, punishment,
and rehabilitation. The legal system seems in practice a two-tier, class-based system. The civil system
governs the business classes, using restitution. Criminal law governs mainly the working class, with
harsher imprisonment as punishment. Punishing some whilst trying to rehabilitate others is unfair
and an ineffective deterrent. The purpose of imprisonment as a deterrent seems ineffective. It
seems counter-intuitive to send a person to prison and then return them to the community after
having served their sentence when they still might be dangerous. Perhaps court magistrates still see
removal as doing justice to the community. However, surely the danger offenders pose to the
community increases after establishing criminal networks and feeling a sense of injustice against the
establishment after imprisonment. Reform programmes a prisoner might undertake in prisons could
take place outside of a prison. In some cases, magistrates might send people to prison to get ‘better’
and to become less dangerous. Magistrates might send people to prison as punishment, restricting
their ability to see their family and to pause their daily life. It is remarkable that we are living in a
democratic society but the biggest punishment we face is the removal of that freedom. In some
cases, perhaps magistrates send people to prisons for punishment with extra measures like
segregation in mind. Prisons in this period are notorious for their brutality, from officers and other
inmates and with segregation in single cells, imprisonment within a prison. I think that the prisoners’
sources would offer great insight into the humanitarian crisis. The Hull prison riot highlighted officer
brutality, but it seems that the media gave less sympathy to the prisoners than the officers. Perhaps
this meant the debate could not change public opinion about imprisonment because the media may
not have done enough to re-humanize the prisoners. Studying the people and the arguments on the
successful side of the debate would lead to a better understanding of why that side was more
successful.
Section 2.
Newspaper articles from the period track the rise and fall of the debate about prisons. Newspaper
cuttings give a sense of changing public opinion due to their directory nature. Newspapers also set
forth arguments for and against prisons at crucial moments in the period. Article authors and
newspapers offer insight, on both a local and public scale, into who was arguing what. However,
they do not give direct insight into who was pioneering the movement against prisons, or the
strongest advocates for keeping prisons. Prisons in this period are in a silent realm. The government
and prisons denied newspapers and public access to prison affairs. So, newspapers are only useful in
tracking public discourse about prisons and less so for tracking discussion on prison affairs. The
Prison Officer Association conference documents, House of Commons debates and court
magistrates’ documents would offer more insight for assessing debate about and the practice of
strengthening prisons. The national and local archives have many newspaper cuttings about the
prison debates of this period. I would narrow my search in some ways. Firstly, by focussing on the
Hull prison riot. Also, by searching for reports on changes in legal policy about prisons. Finally, by
searching for debates about the purposes and critiques on whom prisons targeted.
Prisoners and ex-prisoners discussed prison conditions and demanded reform in their polemics,
memoirs, and diaries. National and local archives give access to documents after about 100 years, so
I probably would not have access to prisoners’ lives between the 1960s to the 1980s beyond
published material. Many prisoners publishing accounts through prison reform organizations would
have aligned their presentation of prisons with the organizations’ agendas. Reading prisoners’
Are prisons an effective way of doing justice? From the 1960s until the 1980s, episodes of significant
debate occurred discussing prisons’ efficacy in managing crime, let alone in ending it. On this
occasion, the debate ended with a larger, arguably more violent, less effective prison system. Why
was there a strengthening of prisons? Was it that no-one proposed serious alternatives, the timing
of the debate or another reason? A whole series of debates included improving youth offenders’
prisons, ideas about restorative justice and understanding women’s criminalization differently to
men. This opened further debates about having soft prisons and home detention but
simultaneously, more horrible maximum-security prisons. The debate soon broadened out into a
discussion on the efficacy of rehabilitation, the increase in marginalized racial groups in prisons and
numbers convicted for drug offenses. Public discourse on the future of prisons and possible solutions
ended with prisons’ reaffirmation. The outcome of the debate was a complete failure. Certainly,
there were improvements around the edges, such as for juvenile prisons. Nonetheless, prisons
became more brutal and less effective in doing social justice.
I want to trace the debate and unpack this puzzle. I want to focus on the social injustices of targeting
racial groups and the working class with imprisonment. I want to highlight the humanitarian crisis in
prisons, their inefficacy of dealing with crime and the illogical nature of depriving people of their
freedom in a democratic society. I want to look at what newspaper writers, ex-prisoners and court
officials argued on both sides of the debate.
I want to research the extent to which people listened to ex-prisoners, prisoners and prison reform
movements by examining the riot at Hull prison in 1976. This case study would highlight the
humanitarian crisis and brutality in prisons. This riot was part of the wider 1970’s prison crisis, which
was partly sparked because of race. The changing composition of prisons saw a dramatic,
disproportionate increase in the number of African-Americans. Drug use also exploded for
criminalization. I want to look at why the criminal justice system deals with problems for the
marginalized working class with imprisonment, instead of addressing social ills with measures such
as community funding and reform programs outside of prisons.
I want to research who was arguing, successfully, against closing prisons and to suggest why that
was successful. With the debates from the 1960s, many people thought it was possible to imagine a
world without prisons. After the debates, there was a strong sense that there is no alternative. In
other words, there is nothing that the state would pay for that is better than prisons. There is little
evidence that suggests prisons successfully rehabilitate criminals or are an effective crime deterrent.
Alternatives to prisons have not yet had proper funding. Why was this side of the debate successful
against the evidence? The bigger question is why prisons still exist and seem to become more
powerful in the public imagination than they should. I want to research court magistrates’
documents on the matter, questioning to whom they wanted to do justice. Within this I could study
the purposes of imprisonment, sending people to prison as or for punishment, reform programmes
in prison’s success and the purpose of maintaining safety by removing ‘dangerous’ criminals from
the community. Magistrates are close enough to the problem to know that sending people to
prisons does not work. Why then, do magistrates sustain their practical faith in prisons even if they
probably privately think that imprisonment does not work?
I want to highlight social injustices against the working class. I hope to give voice to those targeted
unfairly by prisons, to offer a useful critique of the logic behind imprisonment and to discuss the
prison humanitarian crisis. By assessing the Hull 1976 riot, I will allow space to discuss prisoners’
demands for better conditions. I hope to suggest how researchers could better enact change during
, future opportunities like those between the 1960s and 1980s. I hope to do this by tracing the
arguments in newspapers and pamphlets.
I think that the debates would highlight the conflicting purposes of the justice system, punishment,
and rehabilitation. The legal system seems in practice a two-tier, class-based system. The civil system
governs the business classes, using restitution. Criminal law governs mainly the working class, with
harsher imprisonment as punishment. Punishing some whilst trying to rehabilitate others is unfair
and an ineffective deterrent. The purpose of imprisonment as a deterrent seems ineffective. It
seems counter-intuitive to send a person to prison and then return them to the community after
having served their sentence when they still might be dangerous. Perhaps court magistrates still see
removal as doing justice to the community. However, surely the danger offenders pose to the
community increases after establishing criminal networks and feeling a sense of injustice against the
establishment after imprisonment. Reform programmes a prisoner might undertake in prisons could
take place outside of a prison. In some cases, magistrates might send people to prison to get ‘better’
and to become less dangerous. Magistrates might send people to prison as punishment, restricting
their ability to see their family and to pause their daily life. It is remarkable that we are living in a
democratic society but the biggest punishment we face is the removal of that freedom. In some
cases, perhaps magistrates send people to prisons for punishment with extra measures like
segregation in mind. Prisons in this period are notorious for their brutality, from officers and other
inmates and with segregation in single cells, imprisonment within a prison. I think that the prisoners’
sources would offer great insight into the humanitarian crisis. The Hull prison riot highlighted officer
brutality, but it seems that the media gave less sympathy to the prisoners than the officers. Perhaps
this meant the debate could not change public opinion about imprisonment because the media may
not have done enough to re-humanize the prisoners. Studying the people and the arguments on the
successful side of the debate would lead to a better understanding of why that side was more
successful.
Section 2.
Newspaper articles from the period track the rise and fall of the debate about prisons. Newspaper
cuttings give a sense of changing public opinion due to their directory nature. Newspapers also set
forth arguments for and against prisons at crucial moments in the period. Article authors and
newspapers offer insight, on both a local and public scale, into who was arguing what. However,
they do not give direct insight into who was pioneering the movement against prisons, or the
strongest advocates for keeping prisons. Prisons in this period are in a silent realm. The government
and prisons denied newspapers and public access to prison affairs. So, newspapers are only useful in
tracking public discourse about prisons and less so for tracking discussion on prison affairs. The
Prison Officer Association conference documents, House of Commons debates and court
magistrates’ documents would offer more insight for assessing debate about and the practice of
strengthening prisons. The national and local archives have many newspaper cuttings about the
prison debates of this period. I would narrow my search in some ways. Firstly, by focussing on the
Hull prison riot. Also, by searching for reports on changes in legal policy about prisons. Finally, by
searching for debates about the purposes and critiques on whom prisons targeted.
Prisoners and ex-prisoners discussed prison conditions and demanded reform in their polemics,
memoirs, and diaries. National and local archives give access to documents after about 100 years, so
I probably would not have access to prisoners’ lives between the 1960s to the 1980s beyond
published material. Many prisoners publishing accounts through prison reform organizations would
have aligned their presentation of prisons with the organizations’ agendas. Reading prisoners’
