Britain: An official handbook > 1966

Administrative
Authorities
Prisons
LAW AND ORDER 99
A Bill providing for the complete abolition of the death penalty is at present
(September 1965) before Parliament.
In Northern Ireland provision is made in the Criminal Justice Bill (Northern
Ireland) for the abolition of the death penalty in all but four categories of
murder: murder of a constable or other person in the service of the Crown in
the course of duty involving enforcement of the law, maintenance of law and
order or the administration or advancement of justice; murder done in the
course of furtherance of any seditious conspiracy or of the activities of an
unlawful organisation; murder which has been deliberately or callously
planned in advance; and murder done in the course of a planned and deliberate
crime likely to involve the use of violence.
In England and Wales the Home Secretary is the minister generally responsible
for legislation relating to the treatment of offenders, for collecting statistical
and other information about the operation of the penal system, for reviewing
the advantages and defects of the various methods of treating offenders, and
for bringing information about these methods to the attention of the courts.
He is specifically responsible for supervising the approved schools, for pro¬
moting the efficiency of the probation service, and for providing, maintaining
and managing prisons, borstal institutions, detention centres, remand centres
and attendance centres.
The law requires that visiting committees or boards of visitors should be
appointed at every prison, borstal institution, detention centre or remand
centre, partly to ensure that local interest in the administration of these
establishments is preserved and partly to provide some independent and
unofficial check on the administration, and particularly on the punishment,
of inmates. For each prison to which offenders may be committed directly
by a court, a visiting committee of justices of the peace is appointed by the
various courts of quarter sessions in the area, in numbers fixed by the Home
Secretary. For all other prisons and for borstals, detention centres and remand
centres a board of visitors is appointed by the Home Secretary; not less than
two members must be justices of the peace.
The penal systems in Scotland and Northern Ireland are based on principles
similar to those applied in England and Wales. In Northern Ireland the system
is the responsibility of the Ministry for Home Affairs.
The post-war increase in the total number of people found guilty of indictable
offences led to severe overcrowding in prisons and strained the resources of
borstals, detention centres and remand centres. In addition, many of the
existing prisons dated from the middle of the nineteenth century and were
unsuited to modern methods of penal treatment. Measures to deal with the
problems include a substantial increase in the number of prisons and other
penal institutions and in due course the reconstruction or replacement of a
number of old prisons.
The Prison Rules state that ‘the purpose of the training and treatment of
convicted prisoners shall be to encourage and assist them to lead a good and
useful life’. To this end prisoners in England and Wales are classified into
groups, according to their record, character and potentialities, and assigned,
so far as circumstances permit, to the establishment best suited to their needs.
The separation of male from female prisoners is required by statute; otherwise
classification is a matter for administrative direction. Untried prisoners are
separated from convicted prisoners and those under 21 are separated from
adults. Prisoners serving their first sentence, and those considered suitable to