A major 3-part work that is the definitive history of Irish Republican prisoners detained in England's maximum security prisons during the modern 'Troubles'. Based on private correspondence, declassified government documents, international media reports, and memoirs of key protagonists, this book tells the story of all the major riots, roof top protests, sabotage attacks and escape attempts undertaken by the IRA, as well as the little-known 'blanket protest' in several prison locations in England. Volume 2 tells the full story of the Wormwood Scrubs 'riot' of August 1979, Brixton breakout of December 1980 and the pivotal Albany 'mutiny' of May 1983, told for the firs time using fresh eye-witness accounts as well official and public sources. This ground breaking book confirms that the 'prison war' in England was a far more important IRA theatre of action than previously believed. -- Publisher description.

For most of us, the prison is an unfamiliar institution and life 'inside' is beyond our experience. However, more than 60,000 people now live in our gaols, some serving their sentences in buildings with Victorian or more ancient origins, others in prisons dating from the last twenty years. 'English Prisons: An Architectural History' is the result of the first systematic written and photographic survey of prisons since the early 20th century. It traces the history of the purpose-built prison and its development over the past 200 years. Over 130 establishments that make up the current prison estate and over 100 former sites that have surviving buildings or extensive documentation have been investigated, institutions ranging from medieval castles and military camps to country houses that have been taken over and adapted for penal use. The Prison Service granted the project team unprecedented access to all its establishments, allowing the compilation of an archive of more than 5,000 images ad 250 research files. The team was allowed to go anywhere, to photograph almost anything (except where this could compromise security) and to speak to any inmate. A selection of the images from the archive illustrates this book.

This social history analyses a period in which the modern prison faced serious challenges both on practical & philosophical grounds. These included the use of prison to victimise the poor, the disaffected & political activists, & the failure to establish the prison as a satisfactory means of punishment.

Written by a former prison governor, 'Pain and Retribution' charts the history of British prisons, from the time of the Norman Conquest to the present day.

In the late 1950s crime and its treatment had never been of greater public interest. In The English Prisons, originally published in 1960, D.L. Howard used his knowledge of academic criminology and his practical experience of criminals of all ages to produce a book which would be of value to all who were concerned with crime in this country at the time. The author gives the first full survey of the history of prisons to appear for many years. He describes conditions in the early prisons and prison hulks, the colonial penal settlements, and the part played by outstanding individuals such as John Howard, Elizabeth Fry and Alexander Paterson in the development of the modern prison system. He then discusses, in the light of first-class experience as a trained sociologist working inside an English prison, the changes which were taking place in the treatment of criminals, and the problems which these changes were creating. Mr Howard shows a rare insight into his subject, and this, together with an ability to write vividly and informally, would make his book appeal to both the general reader and all who were studying the social sciences in the universities and as part of their training for social work. Today it can be read in its historical context.

A brilliant work from the most influential philosopher since Sartre. In this indispensable work, a brilliant thinker suggests that such vaunted reforms as the abolition of torture and the emergence of the modern penitentiary have merely shifted the focus of punishment from the prisoner's body to his soul.

First published in 1922, in this volume Sydney and Beatrice Webb give a detailed account of the evolution of the English Prison System from the common gaol and the house of correction of the sixteenth century down to the statutory changes of the twentieth century, and survey the successive efforts at reform of John Howard and Elizabeth Fry, Jeremy Bentham and James Neild, Sir T. Fowell Buxton and J.J. Gurney. The origin and development of the cellular system, the treadwheel and the crank, the penal dietary and the "system of progressive stages" all come under review, together with the administrative changes made by Sir Edmund Du Cane and Sir Evelyn Ruggles, and the reforms during the first part of this century. In his original preface, Bernard Shaw makes a penetrating analysis of the whole theory of punishment and the incarceration of our fellow-citizens, maintaining that "Imprisonment as it exists today ... is a worse crime than any of those committed by its victims; for no single criminal can be as powerful for evil, or as unrestrained in its exercise, as an organized nation". Professor Radzinowicz in a masterly new introduction surveys the development of the prison system in this century and concludes by saying of ‘English Prisons under Local Government’ that "No one can claim to understand English penology today without having read and reflected upon this book, for it imparts not only knowledge but perspective."