Prisons, Politics and Practices in

England and Wales 1945–2020: The

Operational Management Issues
Cornwell
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Prisons, Politics and
Practices in England and
Wales 1945–2020
The Operational Management Issues

David J. Cornwell
 Prisons, Politics and Practices in England
and Wales 1945–2020

“The problems of the English penal system are well documented, but David
Cornwell’s book is a timely and original analysis of the failures of successive
governments to tackle fundamental questions surrounding the growing prison
population and high recidivism rates. Cornwell writes in a very engaging,
lucid and authoritative style; his arguments are effectively marshalled and
persuasively developed. The book is undoubtedly one of the best accounts of
the evolution of penal policy in modern times and is highly recommended.”
—Professor Jonathan Doak, Nottingham Trent University, UK
 David J. Cornwell

Prisons, Politics
and Practices
in England
and Wales
1945–2020
The Operational Management Issues
David J. Cornwell
Banbury, Oxfordshire, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-84276-5 ISBN 978-3-030-84277-2 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84277-2

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 Foreword

One of the most troubling elements of the modern penal system is

its continuing failure to reduce reoffending and to provide a safe
and constructive environment for prisoners. The imprisonment rate in
England and Wales is the highest in Western Europe and successive
governments have failed to address the issues of penal expansion, humane
containment, and rehabilitation adequately. These problems have been
highlighted further during the pandemic which has increased the burdens
on prisoners and staff. This monograph is therefore very timely, arriving
during a period of high levels of imprisonment and prison violence, prob-
lems with drugs, staff shortages, poor conditions, shrinking resources
and insufficient access to rehabilitative activities, as well as high levels
of self-harm.
David Cornwell offers a critical examination of the performance of the
penal process since 1945, with a focus on adult male prisons. This trajec-
tory is marked by key milestones including, inter alia, the 1990 riots and
subsequent Woolf Report, the commitment to prison building and tough
on crime policies by successive governments, the 2003 Criminal Justice
Act, and the creation of the Ministry of Justice in 2007 and the impact

v
vi Foreword

of organisational changes and public spending cuts in the last decade.

These policies and legislation have contributed to the continuing prob-
lems of overcrowding while attempts to deal with spiralling costs through
privatisation have proved problematic. The author offers a commentary
on a developmental process in criminal justice and treats the so-called
penal crisis of the 1990s and subsequent years as the culmination of the
decline within that process stretching back to the 1960s.
A constant turnover of Ministers responsible for Justice has added to
the instability of the penal system, as well as confusion over the purposes
of prison which has meant a reliance on short-term measures, rather than
addressing more fundamental questions including the problem of recidi-
vism, despite a reliance on deterrence based sentencing. The constant
changes in leadership and in the structure of correctional services have
added the sense of a lack of control and the failure to solve key prob-
lems such as overcrowding. The book recognises the problems faced by
staff in negotiating this process in the context of a lack of leadership and
consistency and centralisation and managerialism.
Cornwell reflects, in this monograph, on the reasons for the current
malaise, placing the topic in its historical, social and political context.
The inconsistencies in governmental thinking, policy-making, and legis-
lation in relation to the purposes of punishment and imprisonment
during the period under review, as well as the indecisiveness in the
management of prisons at the strategic operational level are highlighted.
The need for statutory controls over the use of custody, especially in rela-
tion to shorter sentences, is advocated. The failure to provide effective
and demanding community penalties to divert low-risk offenders from
the formal court process and from custody is also discussed.
The author is eminently placed to comment on the current prison
crisis, given his extensive experience of working within the UK prison
system, as well as his familiarity with other jurisdictions. The author
approaches the issue broadly and offers a wide-sweeping analysis of the
subject matter. Discussions of recent developments, including the failure
of the outsourcing of probation and the escalation of violence and drug
use inside prison, are included. This book offers an overview and critique
of the way penal policy and practice have been dealt with by successive
 Foreword vii

governments who have tried to outbid each other for public support in
demonstrating their toughness on crime and punishment.
While much of the discussion makes depressing reading, the author
argues strongly for penal reform, with practical suggestions pointing
to a way forward and to provide a criminal justice system fit for
purpose. Why the UK criminal justice process is so different from
comparable European societies is questioned and an agenda for change,
in view of the formidable social and economic costs of penal expan-
sion, is proposed. Recommendations include a statutory limit on over-
crowding, the transfer of remand prisoners to secure accommodation
outside prison, changes in sentencing policy, a moratorium on prison
building and an expansion of community sanctions and greater use of
restorative justice.
The author raises the issue of whether a Royal Commission on the
Penal System of England and Wales would be the best solution to address
problems faced by the criminal justice process now and in the immediate
future, to protect the criminal justice process from arbitrary and partisan
political pressures. This book will be of interest to those working within
the prison system, as well as to students and researchers of penology and
criminology, and to members of the public with an interest in penal
matters but it should also be read by policymakers and politicians.

June 2021 Susan Easton

Brunel University
London, UK

Susan Easton who has provided the Foreword for this book is a Barrister and
Professor of Law at Brunel University. She is a specialist on prisoners’ rights and
author of The Politics of the Prison and the Prisoner: Zoon Politikon (Routledge,
2018) and Prisoners’ Rights: Principles and Practice (Routledge, 2011). She is
co-author (with Christine Piper) of the textbook Sentencing and Punishment:
the Quest for Justice, Oxford University Press, 2016. (4th Edition), and has also
taught undergraduates in UK prisons.
 Preface

This book is a reflection on half of a working lifetime spent within the

prisons of England and Wales, visiting prisons in a number of European
countries, and latterly participating in an advisory capacity within the
prisons system in the Republic of South Africa between 1997 and 2004.
Some of these prisons were public sector establishments: others operated
in the private sector of Correctional Services. In more recent years of
semi-retirement, there has been time to reflect upon these experiences
and resume an active research interest in their criminological and social
policy implications.
The work is concerned with adult male (18 years and older) prisons
in England and Wales that hold convicted prisoners, including Local
prisons that also house adult male persons remanded in custody by the
courts awaiting trial, conviction and sentencing. It does not deal with
prisons for women, Immigration Removal Centres (IRCs), or provisions
for the custody of juvenile offenders within the separate Youth Custody
sector.
I would not claim that working in prisons has been an overwhelmingly
enriching experience since such places are ultimately depositories for the

ix
x Preface

more wicked, ruthless, cunning, manipulative, socially disadvantaged and

often feckless outcasts of every society. However, the social purpose of
prisons is to accommodate such people in conditions deemed acceptable
and appropriate by governments as a political expedient. Whether these
conditions are decent, humane, purposeful or change-inducing is entirely
a matter of how they are managed within the resource constraints that
determine their operational effectiveness.
Prison staff are a unique breed of professional people with various
extents of dedication to the task of dealing with their charges in a disci-
plined and undiscriminating manner, but with a duty of care for their
reasonable welfare and social functioning. They work daily within a
stressful and sometimes dangerous environment which can be hostile,
volatile and threatening in adverse circumstances. Like police officers
they deserve public admiration and support for the service they provide,
and the diligence and bravery with which they perform their statutory
duties.
All of this stated, the penal process of England and Wales is and has
for decades past existed in an appallingly dysfunctional state of political
mismanagement and operational crisis as this work must testify if honesty
is to prevail. The use (and misuse) of imprisonment as the ultimate
punishment within a democratic society has been abused in a progres-
sively more intensive manner in pursuit of crime control rather than
crime reduction, and in the interests of political expediency rather than
of social necessity. These facts are indisputable and amount to a damning
indictment of the state of our national civilisation in every sense of that
word and its definition.
But this does not answer the question about what needs to be done
to resolve the situation within a process that has become so structurally
infected with viruses that it has become pathogenic. Structures in such
a condition normally have to be demolished, sanitised and re-built, but
the penal process is a living organism for which such treatment cannot
be envisaged. Radical reform is, however, still a conceivable option, but
it would need a social and political consensus that it is now urgently
required. That is a central message within this work.
To comprehend this need it is necessary to understand how the penal
malaise has developed and deepened over the post-War years since 1945,
 Preface xi

and in particular, the nature of the viruses that have contributed to its
pathogenic state. Part One of this work is designed to deliver that under-
standing. Part Two is focused on the contemporary situation of the penal
process, why it is vulnerable to the failure of prisons on an operational
basis, and how, given the necessary consensus, it could be re-configured
to deliver an increased likelihood of crime reduction.
Many of the overall recommendations within this book stem from
considerations in earlier work to which reference is made on a number
of occasions. Of particular note here is the extraordinary ambivalence
of successive governments in the new millennium towards the intro-
duction and implementation of restorative justice practices which could
have made a significant and timely contribution towards practical penal
reform. That these were neglected for largely ideological reasons and on
the specious premise that they were not ‘evidence-led’ was a singular
exercise in obfuscation: they were certainly no less ‘evidence-led’ than
persistence with un-provable deterrence doctrine as a cardinal principle
of criminal punishment, the IPP and ESPP sentencing provisions of
CJA 2003, or the outsourcing of offender supervision to CRCs in the
Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014.
The reader will also note that this work does not address in any detail
the complex issue of prisoners’ rights which, while remaining an impor-
tant historical and contemporary matter of controversy in prison life,
could occupy an entire volume of study and analysis. Reference is made
in Part One to the causes of prison disorder during the period of the
1980s and 1990s in which the ‘rights issue’ was undoubtedly a contrib-
utory feature to the widespread prison unrest in the UK and the USA
in particular. This much stated, however, the more dominant causes of
the penal crisis in England and Wales were of ‘conditions’ and ‘numbers’
which successive governments failed to resolve to any satisfactory extent,
and which remain the primary focus of concern within this work.
Of similar concern is the fact that in the aftermath of the widespread
April 1990 riots at Strangeways Prison Manchester and elsewhere, the
(then) and successive governments largely disregarded the causal symp-
toms of the unrest, and allowed the custodial penal population to escalate
out of control through failure to establish restrictions on the sentencing
practices in the courts, and the passage of subsequent legislation bound
xii Preface

to exacerbate the overcrowded state of the prisons. This legacy of failure

and neglect perpetuated the penal crisis into the first two decades of the
new millennium, while at the same time denying prisons any hope that
they might have had of re-establishing disciplined, controlled, safe, and
purposeful regime conditions.
For these, and for many other reasons that will be encountered
throughout this book, it concludes on a sombre note. Where and
if prisons in England and Wales fail through overcrowding, lack of
adequate regime resources, or staffing provision to reduce recidivism
as many presently do fail, it is because they have become politically
condemned to do so. Only a system-wide consensus for extensive and
determined reform of the entire penal process can remedy such a
situation.
This work is dedicated to those who manage and operate our prisons
under the prevailing adverse conditions of their profession, and to those
who may seek to understand how and why their task has become so
difficult to accomplish with morality and humanity.

Banbury, Oxfordshire, UK David J. Cornwell

June 2021
 Acknowledgements

Since this book represents the culminating point in a career spanning

some forty-three years of active involvement in the fields of criminal
justice practice, research, and latterly writing, I reflect that I owe an
immense debt of gratitude to a number of former and contemporary
friends and colleagues who have guided my path along the road to this
publication. In particular I wish to thank the late Professor Kathleen
Jones and Dr. Tony Fowles who inspired my interest in criminology at
York University in the first instance in the 1980s and onwards.
Thereafter, my thanks to my former publishers Bryan Gibson at
Waterside Press UK, and Selma Soetenhorst-Hoedt at Eleven Publishing
International, Den Haag, Netherlands, who patiently steered my earlier
works into print on a number of successive occasions.
Over the intervening years I wish to acknowledge the advice, assis-
tance, and encouragement so generously given by Siriol David, Charles
Erickson, Martin Seddon, Martin Wright, Sir Louis Blom-Cooper QC,
James Dignan, Christine Piper, and Susan Easton in the UK; by John
Blad and Bas van Stokkom in The Netherlands; by Lode Walgrave,

xiii
xiv Acknowledgements

Paul De Hert, and Serge Gutwirth (Belgium); Jean-Pierre Bonafé-

Schmitt (France); Thomas Trenczek (Germany); Federico Reggio (Italy);
Per Andersen (Norway); Tapio Lappi-Seppälä (Finland); Borbála Fellegi
(Hungary); Ann-Mari Hesselink, Nico Luwes and Ann Skelton (RSA);
Mark Umbreit (USA); Robert Cormier (Canada); Heather Strang, Claire
Spivakovsky, and John Braithwaite (Australia); and FWM (Fred) McElrea
(New Zealand).
To former friends and colleagues within HM Prison Service between
1981 and 1997, and Group4 Correction Services Bloemfontein RSA
from 1997 to 2003, my gratitude for their companionship and support
during times good, bad, and indifferent, for their cheerfulness and forti-
tude, and for their loyalty in sometimes stressful circumstances which
was exemplary.
Also, sincere thanks to Susan Easton for her excellent and pene-
trating Foreword to this book, to Martin Wasik and Jonathan Doak for
their endorsements, and to Josephine Taylor, Liam Inscoe-Jones, Supraja
Ganesh, Ranjith Mohan and their teams at Palgrave Macmillan who have
so professionally brought this work to life. And finally to my partner Jean
who has stoically endured the lengthy period of its preparation.
 Books by the Same Author

Criminal Punishment and Restorative Justice, Waterside Press, UK, 2006.

Doing Justice Better: The Politics of Restorative Justice, Waterside Press, UK, 2007.
The Penal Crisis and The Clapham Omnibus, Waterside Press„ UK, 2009.
Civilising Criminal Justice: An International Agenda for Penal Reform, [Edited
with John Blad& Martin Wright]. Waterside Press, UK, 2013.
Mercy: A Restorative Philosophy, UK: Waterside Press, 2014.
Desert in a Reparative Frame: Re-defining Contemporary Criminal Justice, Eleven
International Publishing, Den Haag, NL, 2016.
Criminal Deterrence Theory: The History, Myths & Realities, Eleven International
Publishing, Den Haag, NL, 2018.

xv
 Contents

Part I Prisons and Penology: A Survey of Post-war

England and Wales 1945–2020
1 Introduction and Overview of This Book 3
Preliminary Observations 4
The Outline of This Book 8
Part Two 11
References 12
2 Change and Uncertainty in Penal Strategies
1945–1991 13
Strategic Post-war Penal Policies—The Rehabilitative
Ideal 13
‘Humane Containment’ 16
Emergence of the ‘Justice Model’ of Corrections 18
Strategic Paralysis in the Late 1980s 22
Strangeways, April 1990 and the Aftermath 25
Conclusions from Chapter 2 29
References 32

xvii
xviii Contents

3 Prisons, Managerialism and Privatisation 1991–1997 35

The Early 1990s: Prisons at the Crossroads 35
Managerialism and Privatisation: Twin Pillars of a New
Penal Strategy 39
Resurgence of the ‘Law and Order’ Mantra Post-1992 42
The Judicial Response 45
Further Problems with Prison Privatisation 48
Turmoil and Confusion Post-Whitemoor 49
Towards the End of an Era 53
Conclusion to Chapter 3 56
References 57
4 Re-branding the ‘Toc’ Image: New Labour
1997–2007 59
As It Was in May 1997 59
Chasing the Crime Control Dragon 61
New Millennium: New Approaches or Old Ones
Revived? 67
CJA 2003—A Colossus of Ideological Obfuscation 73
Criminal Dangerousness and Its Punishment in CJA
2003 76
The Aftermath of CJA 2003 79
References 85
5 Penality and the Ministry of Justice Era 2007–2020 87
An Uncertain Beginning 87
Creation of the Ministry of Justice 2007 89
Carter Redivivus and the State of the Prisons 2007–2008 93
Into the Doldrums: 2008–2010 98
2010–2020: A Decade of ‘Busy Going Nowhere’ 102
Looking Ahead: Conclusions from Part One 110
References 115

Part II A Vision for the Prisons of the Future

6 Strategic Management of Prisons: Structure and Style 121
Introduction to Part Two 121
 Contents xix

HMPPS: Chimerical Vision or Marriage

of Inconvenience? 125
Structural Uncertainty in Prisons Management 129
Restoring Strategic Reputation and Style Within
HMPPS 132
Conclusions from This Chapter 142
References 144
7 Towards ‘Doing Justice Better’ 145
Learning from the Lessons of the Past 145
Scoping the Potential for Custodial Reduction 148
What Does ‘Doing Justice Better’ Mean? 152
Reparative and Restorative Justice: The Neglected Link
in Contemporary Corrections 155
References 161
8 Making Prisons Fit for Purpose 165
Defining the Purpose of Prisons 165
Making Prisons More Purposeful 170
Centralisation and Devolution in Prison Governance 174
Re-conceiving a Reformative Ethic 177
References 180
9 Beyond the Prison Walls 183
Prisons in a Community Context 183
Bridging the Custody: Community Divide 184
Prisons and Their Neighbourhood Communities 187
Is There a Role for Reparative Justice in a Unified
Correctional Process? 189
References 196
10 Summation and Conclusions 199
The Starting Point 199
Prisons: Their Use and Abuse 201
The Politics of Criminal Justice 205
Practices and Malpractices in the Penal Process 212
xx Contents

The Need for Systematic Future Research into the Penal

Process 216
References 219

Appendix 1 221
Appendix 2 227
Appendix 3 229
Author’s Postscript 233
Bibliography 237
Index 251
 About the Author

David J. Cornwell was educated at Christ’s Hospital School, Horsham,

and the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. He is a former Army
Officer, Prison Governor, Consultant Criminologist and Author,
focusing predominantly on issues in penal philosophy, criminal punish-
ment, restorative justice, and mediation.
While working in the Prison Service of England and Wales from 1981
to 1997, he held posts as an Assistant Governor at HMP Northallerton,
HMP Wakefield, and HMYOI Deerbolt. Subsequently he became a
Tutor at HM Prison Service College, Wakefield, and later was Deputy
Governor and Acting Governor of HMP Frankland near Durham.
Finally, he was Head of Security Audit in the Standards Audit Unit of
HM Prison Service in which capacity he visited and audited security
procedures in more than eighty prisons before retiring and moving to
the private sector with Group 4 Securitas in late 1997.
Like others who were present throughout the twenty-five days of the
Strangeways riot at Manchester in April 1990, David Cornwell reflects
that leading the Negotiation Team within the almost destroyed structure

xxi
xxii About the Author

of the prison to persuade prisoners to surrender was a life-changing expe-

rience. Never before in prisons had negotiation skills been tested to such
a challenging extent and duration, and his pride in his Team’s bravery
and professional performance remains undiminished to this day.
With Group 4 he was Head of Operations during the commissioning
and opening phases of HMP Altcourse in Liverpool, and subsequently
moved to the company’s HQ at Broadway, Worcestershire from where
he was deployed to the Republic of South Africa and worked in the
capacity of Operations Adviser during the construction, commissioning
and opening of Mangaung Maximum Security Prison—eventually a
3000-bed facility near Bloemfontein in the Free State Province—between
1998 and 2004. The prison was one of the first two privately operated
prisons in the country within the Department of Correctional Services.
On ceasing active working in prisons in 2004, David Cornwell
resumed a research interest in criminology which started at York Univer-
sity when he left military service in the Army after twenty-three years,
serving in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Far East and the Middle
East between 1956 and 1979. He completed both his Master’s and
Doctoral degree studies at York University in 1980 and 1989, respec-
tively.
He is the Author of seven previous books in the fields of criminology,
penology, and philosophy listed in this work and of numerous journal
articles and conference papers during the years between 1983 and the
present time. He has also visited a number of prisons in Western Europe,
Poland, and South Africa during the same period. He is a Yorkshire
person by adoption, having the misfortune not to be born in that county,
though his children are, all but one, Yorkshire born. He maintains an
active interest in choral singing, rugby football, and cricket and presently
lives in Banbury, Oxfordshire, England with his partner Jean.
 Abbreviations and Acronyms

ACCC Area Community Corrections Centre

ACPS Advisory Council on the Penal System
ACR Automatic Conditional Release
A-PPAG All-Party Penal Affairs Group
ASBO Anti-Social Behaviour Order
AUR Automatic Unconditional Release
BOV Board of Visitors
CCC Community Corrections Centre
CCTV Closed Circuit Television
CJ&CSA Criminal Justice & Court Services Act
CJA Criminal Justice Act
CJF Community Justice Forum
Cm, Cmnd., CM All abbreviations for Command (Paper)
CNA Certified Normal Accommodation
CofE Church of England
Covid-19 Coronavirus Pandemic 2019
CP Consultation Paper
CPS Crown Prosecution Service
CRC Community Rehabilitation Company
CSEW Crime Survey England & Wales

xxiii
xxiv Abbreviations and Acronyms

CSO Community Sentence Order

DCA Department for Constitutional Affairs
DCMF Design, Construct, Manage and Finance (Prisons)
DCR Discretionary Conditional Release
DIA Directorate of Inmate Administration
DIP Directorate of Inmate Programmes
DOC Directorate of Custody
DSP Directorate of Sentence Planning
DST Dedicated Search Team
DTO Detention and Training Order
ECL End of Custody Licence
EDS Extended Determinate Sentence
EFF Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
EROL Early Release on Licence
ESPP Extended Sentence for Public Protection
FGC Family Group Conferencing
FTE Full-Time Equivalent
GBH Grievous Bodily Harm
GBP British Pounds Sterling
HC House of Commons
HCJC House of Commons Justice Committee
HDC Home Detention Curfew
HMC&TS HM Courts & Tribunals Service
HMCIP Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons or Probation (for
England & Wales)
HMP Her Majesty’s Prison
HMPPS Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service
HMSO Her Majesty’s Stationery Office
HMYOI Her Majesty’s Young Offender Institution
HORPU Home Office Research & Planning Unit
HORU Home Office Research Unit
IfG Institute for Government
IMB Independent Monitoring Board
IPP Imprisonment for Public Protection
IRC Immigration Removal Centre
ISPP Indeterminate Sentence for Public Protection
JAC Judicial Appointments Commission
LRC Local Review Committee
LSC Legal Services Commission
 Abbreviations and Acronyms xxv

LSI Local Security Instruction

MBWA Management by Walking About
MoJ Ministry of Justice
NACRO National Association for the Care and Resettlement of
Offenders
NAPO National Association of Probation Officers
NEC National Executive Committee (of POA)
NGPB Non-Governmental Public Body
NOMS National Offender Management Service
NPS National Probation Service
Op. Cap. Operational Capacity
PA-PPAG Parliamentary All-Party Penal Affairs Group
PCC Police & Crime Commissioner
PFI Private Finance Initiative
POA Prison Officer’s Association
PSIF Prison Service Industries & Farms
R&RJ Reparative and Restorative Justice
RJ Restorative Justice
ROTL Release on Temporary Licence
SAP Sentencing Advisory Panel
SCWG Sentencing Commission Working Group
SGC Sentencing Guidelines Council
SGWG Sentencing Guidelines Working Group
SIR Security Information Report
SOR Sex Offender Register
SSU Special Secure Unit
STC Secure Training Centre
TOC Tough (or Toughness) on Crime
TUC Trades Union Congress
USA United States of America
USI Unlawful Sexual Intercourse
VOM Victim Offender Mediation
VWGF Victim and Witness General Fund
YJB Youth Justice Board
YOT Youth Offending Team
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Average daily prison population—England & Wales

1945–2020 (Source Author’s Archived Statistics
and Ministry of Justice 2016: 2—Chart 1) 5
Fig. 5.1 Ministry of Justice and Associated
Ministries—Organisation Structure (as at August 2020)
(Notes *The Parole Board is a Non-Governmental Public
Body sponsored by the Ministry of Justice; **The Youth
Justice Board is a Non-Departmental Public Body; #
Denotes former Department for Constitutional Affairs
[DCA] agencies) 93
Fig. 6.1 HM prison and probation service organisation
chart—CEO, DG and Director Structure 126
Fig. 6.2 The causal sequence of the prisons crisis 133
Fig. A.1 Community justice forums—Suggested composition
(Note * denotes membership of the Standing
Committee, a Formation as an Agency of the Ministry
of Justice recommended in Cornwell, 2016, op. cit.:
119–121, b Representation at Town/City Council level
as appropriate) 227

xxvii
 List of Tables

Table 6.1 Comparative imprisonment rates—Western Europe

2019–20 (Select) 123
Table 7.1 Prison population, England and Wales by sentence
length—Prisoners sentenced to immediate custody,
remanded in Custody and non-criminal detainees
as at 30 June 2019 148
Table 7.2 Sentenced prison population, England and Wales
by main offence group as at 23 July 2019 149
Table A.1 Chronological table of Criminal Justice Legislation,
Prime Ministers, Home and Justice Secretaries
1945–2020 221

xxix
 Part I
Prisons and Penology: A Survey of Post-war
England and Wales 1945–2020
 1
Introduction and Overview of This Book

Many people who might be tempted to pick up and open this book
may be only vaguely familiar with the way in which Her Majesty’s
Prison Service in England and Wales has survived and functioned in the
changing social environment of mainland Britain since the end of World
War 2. Prisons are unusual places within the social structure of most
nations, dedicated to the exclusion of sentenced citizens found guilty of
crime in the courts from day to day life within society for greater or
lesser periods of time. Loss of liberty is a serious matter within democra-
cies and places considerable responsibility and a duty of care upon those
who work in prisons to keep people committed to their charge in secure,
safe and humane conditions until they are released back into society.
This is no simple task. Many prisoners are resentful about their
exclusion, unwilling to conform to the necessary rules and conditions
that imprisonment imposes, and uncooperative towards those who have
to enforce them. A considerable number display symptoms of social
disadvantage in their lives manifested in limited communication skills,
literacy, physical and mental health, addictions, fractured relationships
with their families and close others, and multiple criminal convictions
reaching back into teenage years and even late childhood. Many would
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 3
Switzerland AG 2022
D. J. Cornwell, Prisons, Politics and Practices in England and Wales 1945–2020,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84277-2_1
4 D. J. Cornwell

be homeless on release, and have no vision of the future other than the
likelihood of returning to prison.
This work is predominantly about adult male prisons in England
and Wales since 1945, and the policies and practices that have driven
their performance as an essential public service since that era. During
the period covered, considerable change has taken place in the criminal
justice process of England and Wales, much of it in recent decades not
for the better in terms of penal policies as will become evident. Practices
in the operation of prisons have also been inconsistently and erratically
managed, adding confusion as to the purposes of imprisonment in the
control or reduction of crime in the wider society. Partisan politics within
governments, and media influences upon them, have much to answer for
in this regard.
Figure 1.1 indicates how the size of the average daily prison population
in England and Wales has escalated, particularly since the early 1990s.
Prisons have not been enabled to keep pace with this increasing volume,
leading to the scourge of overcrowding, poor conditions and impover-
ished regimes in many custodial establishments. Overcrowding has many
dysfunctional outcomes within prisons including an increasing preva-
lence of violence, drug cultures, self-harming behaviour among prisoners
and stress-related sickness affecting prison staff.
The strategic organisational structure and culture of the Prison Service
itself have also undergone significant change over the period covered
in this account, much of it due to external influences deriving from
structural turbulence in the approaches of successive governments to
the management of public sector services including privatisation and
budgetary control constraints. In addition, the impact of ‘managerialism’
and centralisation discussed in this work has induced cultural change
within many departmental organisations and the delivery of their services
to the nation.

Preliminary Observations
As its title implies, this work is concerned with the strategic and oper-
ational direction of the penal process of England and Wales during the
 1 Introduction and Overview of This Book 5

85,000 -

80,000 - [December 2020]

75,000 -

70,000 -
Population in Custody

65,000 -

60,000 -

55,000 -

50,000 -

45,000 -

40,000 -

35,000 -

30,000 -

25,000 -

20,000 -

1948 1958 1968 1978 1988 1998 2008 2018

Fig. 1.1 Average daily prison population—England & Wales 1945–2020 (Source
Author’s Archived Statistics and Ministry of Justice 2016: 2—Chart 1)

post-World War 2 period in a general sense, and of the use (and abuse)
of prisons and imprisonment in particular within that era. The primary
focus of attention is on those prisons holding convicted and sentenced
adult male (18 years and older) persons who comprise over eighty per
cent of the total daily prison population, and to a lesser extent on estab-
lishments for the detention of those who are remanded in custody by the
courts awaiting trial or sentence, female offenders, and younger (under
eighteen years) detainees in the youth custody sector.
In particular, it should be noted that within the adult custodial sector
the female estate comprises eleven of the one hundred and twenty-one
prison establishments in England and Wales, holding only four per cent
of the total prison population and amounting to 3,126 persons as at
20 January 2021. None of these prisons was significantly overcrowded
6 D. J. Cornwell

at that time, and regime conditions within the majority of them are of a
generally more modern and progressive standard than those widely found
in the adult male sector. Although in the year to June 2020 some six
thousand women entered these prisons either on remand or sentenced,
the majority of those sentenced (62 per cent ) were serving terms of
less than or equal to six months in duration, and a further 11 per cent
sentences of over six months up to less than twelve months. The majority
(55 per cent ) were committed for non-violent offences (mainly theft and
summary offences), and only 14 per cent for offences of violence (Prison
ReformTrust 2019: 36–37).
The social characteristics of female and male prisoners also differ
significantly, more than half of the women having suffered emotional,
physical or sexual abuse (53 per cent ), and a slightly lesser (48 per cent )
proportion having committed their offences to support the drug use of
someone else. Many also had attempted suicide at some point in their
lives (40 per cent ) (Ibid.: 38).1 For comparative purposes within this
work, therefore, it was deemed inappropriate other than in sentencing
terms to equate these two significantly different populations.2
The term ‘penal process’ is used in preference to the widely adopted
descriptor ‘penal system’because, as will become evident in many parts
of this book, arrangements for the administration of criminal justice in
England and Wales are widely ‘un-systematic’ in a strategic sense. This
lack of cohesiveness has, over many years past, considerably affected the
delivery of effective justice within both the custodial and non-custodial
sectors of the process.
The strategic direction of the criminal justice process is vested in
parliament for its legislative authority, and subsequently in a range of
Departments of State and Agencies clustered around the Ministry of
Justice (MoJ) formed as recently as 2007 for its strategic management.3

1 The corresponding male statistics for adult male prisoners were 27, 22 and 21 per cent
respectively.
2 Later in this work it will be suggested that a case can be made for the abandonment of
short-term prison sentences on the basis that such sentences are counter-productive in reducing
post-sentence recidivism within twelve months of release from prison custody.
3 Prior to May 2007, the focal entity of the criminal justice process was the Home Office
headed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department referred to in this work as the
Home Secretary.
 1 Introduction and Overview of This Book 7

This Ministry and its constituent elements is headed by the Lord Chan-
cellor and Secretary of State for Justice (aka. the Justice Secretary) and
includes two principal components which are HM Courts and Tribunal
Service and HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS).4
It should also be noted that this organisational structure includes no
reference to the role of the Judiciary (Judges and Magistrates) who, since
the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, are appointed independently by
the Judicial Appointments Commission (JAC) in England and Wales
with the final approval of the Lord Chief Justice or the Senior Presi-
dent of Tribunals in respect of Judges, and the Senior Presiding Judge
for England and Wales in respect of Magistrates. This procedural provi-
sion preserves what is known as the ‘Separation of Powers’ of historical
origin,5 making the judiciary largely independent of the Executive func-
tion of government. The nature and implications of this arrangement
recur at intervals in the discussions within this work.
Strategies and policies for the administration of criminal justice are
devised within the Ministry of Justice, predominantly by civil servants
and some professional practitioners who form the permanent staff of
the departments mentioned previously, and who work solely for depart-
mental Ministers of State. During the post-World War 2 era it was
customary for governments to commission universities with expertise
in criminal justice research to undertake in-depth studies and research
to evaluate policy and practice options to inform the process of legisla-
tive decision-making. Funding for this purpose was made available in
the Criminal Justice Act 1948, and in 1957 the Home Office Research
Unit (HORU) was established to coordinate such research, administer
research funding, and undertake in-house studies using its own research
staff and resources. However, by the late 1970s considerably less govern-
ment funding became available for external research, and the HORU
became increasingly dependent upon its own research capacity as the
findings and recommendations of external research, however appropriate,

4 HMPPSwas formed in 2017 by the amalgamation of HM Prison Service and the National
Probation Service as a single entity. The latter Service was formerly responsible for the oper-
ation of 21 private sector Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) which are to be
discontinued from December 2019 onwards on expiry of their existing contracts.
5 Although it has no constitutional status.
8 D. J. Cornwell

could not be guaranteed to be consistent with the advice that minis-

ters wished to receive and implement in terms of government policy
initiatives. As a result, and due also to the increasing influence of the
emerging ‘managerialist’ approach to public sector governance,6 recourse
to external research became rare and the HORU itself was eventu-
ally replaced by a newly formed in-house Home Office Research and
Planning Unit (HORPU) in the early 1980s.

The Outline of This Book

Part One of this book is time sequenced and devoted to a critical exam-
ination and analysis of the performance of the penal process and prisons
in the post-War era up to the present time. It is presented in four chap-
ters (1945–1991, 1991–1997, 1997–2007 and 2007–2020), each of a
significantly different nature in relation to the events described within
them. These chapters provide essential background reading for students
of criminology and social policy as well as for other readers who have a
more general interest in penal affairs and the functioning of the penal
process within the governmental environment during these particular
periods.
Chapter 2 deals with the manner in which changing approaches to
criminal punishment during the 1945–1991 period influenced penal
strategies, and yet created uncertainties about the essential nature of
criminal justice purposes and delivery within the social structure of
England and Wales and elsewhere worldwide. These changes brought
increasing turbulence within the prison system which eventually endured
widespread rioting and disorder culminating in the infamous riot at
Strangeways Prison inManchester and in many other prisons across the
country in April 1990. These disturbances were not confined to prisons
alone, but also mirrored civil disturbance in many urban areas of English
cities during the same period.

6This development in the late 1980s and 1990s is discussed in some considerable detail in
Chapter 3 of this work.
 1 Introduction and Overview of This Book 9

Chapter 3 describes the impact of the 1990 disturbances and the

conduct of the investigation into their causes by Lord Justice Woolf and
Judge Stephen Tumim upon both the government and the penal poli-
cies that emerged in the aftermath. The same chapter also considers
the simultaneous emergence of what became known as the manage-
rialist ideological ethos in the conduct of state governance of public
sector services during the 1990s, including the naissance of privatisa-
tion which was to have considerable implications for the structure of the
Prison Service, its strategic management, its operational effectiveness in
overcrowded conditions, and its climate of disruptive industrial relations.
The sudden change of direction in penal politics occasioned by the
‘Prison Works’ declaration by Home Secretary Michael Howard in
October 1993 (also described in Chapter 2) had a profoundly limiting
effect on the implementation of the recommendations of the Woolf
Inquiry and caused the subsequent sharp increase in the size of the prison
population. The ‘tough on crime’ mantra was established, and with it a
hardening of governmental attitudes towards criminals, sentencing, and
the operation of the penal process.
The situation was worsened by the two notorious escapes of prisoners
from high security prisons at Whitemoor and Parkhurst in late 1994 and
early 1995 which led to the dismissal of the widely admired Director
General of the Prison Service Derek Lewis from his post. However,
the prevailing mood within the country was tiring of the eighteen-year
span of Conservative rule as the General Election of 1st May 1997
approached.
Chapter 4 charts the train of events following that election won by the
New Labour Party led by Tony Blair with Jack Straw as Home Secretary.
It was a crushing defeat for the Conservative government of John Major
leaving his Party with only 165 seats, and New Labour with a majority
of 178 seats in the House of Commons paving the way clear for the new
government to introduce almost any criminal justice policies that it chose
to implement. That initially it chose in the Crime (Sentences) Act 1997
to implement measures to introduce mandatory minimum sentencing
designed by its predecessors was a bizarre turn of events, though it clearly
signalled a preference for a crime control rather than a crime reduction
model of criminal justice within future legislation.
10 D. J. Cornwell

As this chapter indicates very clearly, there followed an increasingly

fervid period of governmental preoccupation with criminal justice issues,
culminating in the Criminal Justice Act 2003—a gargantuan piece of
legislation leading to the introduction of the indeterminate Imprison-
ment for Public Protection (IPP) and Extended Sentence for Public
Protection (ESPP) measures that would inevitably increase the size of the
prison population to a considerable extent. The impact and aftermath of
this Act, analysed in detail in Chapter 4, were to confirm very strongly
the New Labour commitment to a crime control agenda, no matter what
outcomes it would have within the wider criminal justice process and the
prisons in particular.
The final chapter of Part One of this work (Chapter 5) deals with
the decision to create the Ministry of Justice announced on 29th March
2007, its subsequent formation and functioning to the present time, and
its implications for criminal justice administration in England and Wales
which are explained in a sequential manner. The monolithic nature of the
Ministry of Justice, its succession of Justice Secretaries, and the return of
the Conservative Party to power in 2010 (albeit in the form of a coalition
with theLiberal Democratic Party) are examined to reveal the turbulent
nature of this period.
The succession of U-turns in criminal justice policies in combination
with the effects of stringent budgetary reductions imposed on public
sector Departments of State including the Ministry of Justicefrom 2010
onwards, become focal aspects of this chapter. The latter, in particular,
was to have devastating effect on the frontline workforce of the Prison
Service, while the decision taken in 2013–2014 to outsource the super-
vision of low and medium risk offenders and ex-prisoners to the private
sector in the form of Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) was
to place the Probation Service in a somewhat similar situation. Though
both issues were eventually resolved to a limited extent and in different
ways by 2019 as will be seen, their legacy was to leave both Services in
considerable disarray as the 2020s began.
By the end of Chapter 5, the reader will be left to ponder how much
more politically inspired disturbance the criminal justice process could
stand without disintegration, and how this could be averted.
 1 Introduction and Overview of This Book 11

Part Two
The second part of this work is of an entirely different nature. In its
five relatively short chapters, it draws out a number of recurring themes
from Part One of this work for further and more critical discussion.
Principally, these are:

• The strategic structural management of prisons in England and Wales

as it developed since 1945, and in particular in the 1990s and the
present millennium (Chapter 6);
• The lessons from past failures in the management of prisons caused
by partisan political policy-making and neglect of informed advice in
relation to reformative strategies to resolve the enduring penal crisis
since the 1990s (Chapter 7);
• Confusion about the purposes of imprisonment and the capability of
prisons to contribute towards crime reduction (Chapter 8); and
• The unresolved relationship between prisons and non-custodial
justice, and the potential for inclusion of community participation
including reparative and restorative practices in the criminaljustice
process (Chapter 9).

This book ends with a final Chapter 10 in which an overall summary

of the work is offered, and conclusions are drawn. No specific recom-
mendations are made other than those implicit in the text as written,
save only to re-iterate the now pressing need for a Royal Commission
on the Penal System of England and Wales to be established to resolve
the issues raised and the urgent need for penal reform. For many of the
reasons emerging from Part Two, the time has come to stabilise the crim-
inal justice process and protect it from the arbitrary and partisan political
behaviour of governments for electoral advantage that has characterised
the past three decades. The monolithic and over-centralised nature of
the Ministry of Justice and its performance since its foundation in 2007
needs serious re-appraisal, as does the operational potential of HM Prison
and Probation Service established in 2017. Only a Royal Commission
can accomplish such a task since the level of debate that it implies lies
above and beyond that of parliamentary political consideration.
12 D. J. Cornwell

This work also, by inference, suggests that there are several areas of
much-needed academic research that remain to be undertaken if the
criminal justice process of England and Wales is to be made fit for
purpose in the 2020s and beyond. These arise from consideration of the
book in its historical entirety, but in particular the pattern of events that
emerged from the mid-1990s and onwards, and their impact upon the
delivery of criminal justice in the present millennium. In the final part
of Chapter 9, an attempt is made to identify in summary terms the more
urgently needed of these research areas, and what such research might be
hoped to achieve.
A monograph of this nature is unusual in the contemporary world
of the social sciences insofar as it combines a considerable element of
in-depth historical research with a widely-reaching commentary and
analysis of the changing nature of government policies and intentions,
and their effects upon an essential social service such as imprisonment
and the administration of criminal justice. It should also provide a useful
reference source for a wide range of professional and student interests in
social policy issues, criminology, legal studies, philosophy and political
science.

References
Ministry of Justice. (2016) Story of the Prison Population 1993–2016 , London:
Ministry of Justice.
Prison Reform Trust. (2019) ‘Safety in Prisons’, in Prison: The Facts, London:
Prison Reform Trust, (Summer).
 2
Change and Uncertainty in Penal Strategies
1945–1991

Strategic Post-war Penal Policies—The

Rehabilitative Ideal
As peace returned after the hostilities ended in 1945, the average daily
prison population of England and Wales stood at slightly less than
20,000, the majority of whom were held in inner-city and town prisons
of Victorian origin. Regimes in these prisons were Spartan, discipline was
strict, the diet simple, prisoner employments were menial, and privileges
were few. The prevailing punishment philosophy was a continuation
of the pre-war emphasis on retribution and reform, and the deter-
rent effect of imprisonment remained relatively unstated in an almost
taken-for-granted manner.
In some sense of conformity with the national spirit of post-war
‘welfarism’,1 the emphasis within penology during the 1950s and 1960s

1 The term ‘welfarism’ as used here denotes the spirit of optimistic benevolence within post-
War governments to improve the conditions in which the British population recovered from
the privations of a wartime economy. It included emphasis on the provision of an improved
housing stock, the creation of a National Health Service, the creation of a contributory National
Insurance Scheme to create funds to provide against unemployment, and the like.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 13
Switzerland AG 2022
D. J. Cornwell, Prisons, Politics and Practices in England and Wales 1945–2020,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84277-2_2
14 D. J. Cornwell

changed towards the replacement of the concept of reform with that of

‘rehabilitation’. It was predicated in the belief that criminality could be
‘cured’ through a quasi-medical model of therapeutic intervention and
training, enabling offenders to adopt law-abiding lifestyles within their
communities upon release from custody through psychological ‘treat-
ment’ and enhanced literacy, numeracy and employability. Though this
initiative implied the need for sentencing indeterminacy to make release
contingent upon ‘demonstrated progress’, it created a new tier of profes-
sional practitioners within prisons, and a significantly increased extent of
bureaucratic discretion among those subsequently made responsible for
decision-making in relation to release authorisation.2
The ‘Rehabilitative Ideal’3 as it became known became the guiding
‘mantra’ of what weresubsequently termed the adult ‘Training Prisons’ in
England and Wales from the mid-1950s onwards. These prisons oper-
ated in tandem with the Borstal Training system already established for
juvenile and young adult offenders (aged over fifteen and under twenty-
one years) in the Prevention of Crime Act 1908. It was enshrined in the
Prisons Act 1952 and Prison Rule 1 in the words: ‘The purpose of the
treatment and training of convicted prisoners shall be such as to enable
them to lead useful and law-abiding lives in prison and upon release’.
The ‘ideal’ was, however, not without its detractors within a few years
of its implementation. In the first place, it became perceived as a coercive
means of control within prisons due to the requirement that prisoners
had to demonstrate ‘progress within the regime’ to be deemed ‘successful’
in relation to the criteria for early release on parole licence after one third
(or a minimum of twelve months) of their sentence had been served,
and thus applied only to those sentenced to three or more years impris-
onment. Secondly, the criteria for ‘success’ were never clearly specified

2 In fact, it led to the creation of the Parole system of release in the Criminal Justice Act
1967, the National Parole Board, a legislative framework of Local Review Committees (LRCs)
in prisons, and the Home Office Parole Unit to which locally approved cases were forwarded
by LRCs for vetting before consideration by the National Parole Board. For further reading see:
D.P. Walsh, ‘Parole’, in D.P. Walsh and A. Poole (Eds.), A Dictionary of Criminology, London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983, pp. 154–155; and C.P. Nuttall et al., Parole in England and
Wales, Home Office Research Study no. 38, London: Home Office, 1977.
3 Also known as the ‘Treatment and Training Model’ of the penology of the post-War era in
England and Wales.
 2 Change and Uncertainty in Penal Strategies 1945–1991 15

and were thus left to the discretionary interpretation of prison officials

(normally the then Assistant Governors) responsible for reviewing pris-
oner progress and compiling parole reports in conjunction with prison
staff of various disciplines (Prison Officers, Seconded Probation Offi-
cers, Psychologists, Medical Officers, Chaplains, Educational Staff and
Employing Grades, etc.). Third, actual release authorisation was ulti-
mately vested in the discretion of Local Review Committees (LRCs) of
prisons and their recommendations to the parole authorities in London
based on their assessment of the reports, of the written representation
submitted by the individual prisoner (with assistance if required), and a
brief interview with an LRC member. In short, the parole system created
a vast and time-consuming bureaucracy requiring months of preparation,
production and subsequent waiting time for eventual responses.
There were further aspects of criticism of the ‘rehabilitative ideal’
which contributed to its eventual demise for methodological and ethical
reasons. Much of the statistical data used in explanation and assessment
of crime commission and causation were subjectively assembled rather
than scientifically verifiable, were value-laden, and unreliable as a basis
for policy deliberation and legislation.4 This led to the criticism that the
practices based upon such assessment criteria were coercive or manip-
ulative in nature, and implemented more for the purposes of control in
prisons rather than for the reasonable treatment of offenders. In the USA
the model was delivered a coup de grace by Robert Martinson in a widely
publicised article in The Public Interest journal in 1974 in advance of the
publication of a much more comprehensive critique of the ideal in the
following year (Lipton et al. 1975).5 The latter concluded, in a survey of
more than two hundred studies, that no particular form of treatment
programme was any more effective than any other in reducing re-
offending. This analysis became widely, if somewhat pejoratively known

4 Here see, for instance, the analysis of Taylor et al. in The New Criminology, London: Routledge
& Kegan Paul, 1973, helpfully summarised in P. Wiles (Ed.), The Sociology of Crime and
Deviance in Britain, Volume 2, The New Criminologies, London: Martin Robertson, 1976,
pp. 124–144.
5 See: R. Martinson, ‘Questions and Answers About Prison Reform’, The Public Interest, 1974
(Spring): 22–54; and D. Lipton, Martinson, R. and Wilks, J., The Effectiveness of Treatment
Evaluation Studies, New York: Praeger Publications, 1975.
16 D. J. Cornwell

as the ‘nothing works’ hypothesis, but in combination with the criti-

cisms mentioned previously, it was sufficient to destroy confidence in
the rehabilitative ideal.

‘Humane Containment’
In fact, the decline of the rehabilitative ethic was assured for entirely
other reasons in England and Wales since, as the 1970s began, the
prison population was rising rapidly and post-sentence recidivism was
also increasing in frequency. This led to claims in the mass media and
in academic circles that prisons, as then operated, were an inefficient
means of crime reduction. A government White Paper ‘People in Prison’
published in 1969 (Home Office 1969) had introduced the concept of
‘humane containment’ as a primary purpose of imprisonment, and as a
means of reducing the use of short-term sentences to limit overcrowding
and create better conditions in prisons. However, the document was curi-
ously ambivalent towards, and apparently accepting of the inevitability
of a rising prison population.
Whatever ‘humane containment’ was supposed to signify in terms of
penal practice, the purpose(s) of imprisonment and of the Prison Service
itself remained ill-defined and were destined to remain so inthe fore-
seeable future. It was also a period in which the concept of ‘Prisoners’
Rights’ was emerging as a seriously debated matter in relation to prison
conditions, procedures for the redress of prisoner complaints, and access
to legal advice and support. There is, with hindsight, no doubt that the
dominant issue was that of deteriorating prison conditions over which
individual prisons had relatively limited control, but which presaged a
turbulent period of unrest ahead unless the situation could somehow be
urgently addressed.
Abolition of the Death Penalty for murder in the UK, initially on a
trial basis from 1965 and finally in 1969 by the (then) Labour Govern-
ment had not significantly increased the average daily prison population
which, by 1970, had risen to around 26,000 and was set on an upward
path. The term ‘humane containment’, without any more precise elab-
oration, was too opaque to withstand any rigorous philosophical or
 2 Change and Uncertainty in Penal Strategies 1945–1991 17

operational scrutiny beyond the apparent suggestion that prisons should

accommodate however many persons were sentenced to custody by the
courts and in as decent and reasonable conditions as could be provided
within the resources available. Even this minimal requirement was almost
impossible to meet, given that the majority of the 111 prisons then in use
were antiquated Victorian structures or converted former military camps
incapable of holding an expanding penal population without crowded
conditions, and with limited security provision.
Humane containment was hardly a strategy for any form of penal
purpose other than a warehousing process for increasing numbers of
disaffected offenders in conditions that could have been predicted to lead
to unrest in many prisons during the early years of the 1970s. To make
matters worse, the escapes of two high profile prisoners (of Ronald Biggs
the Great Train Robber and three accomplices from Wandsworth Prison
in London in July 1965, and of the Spy George Blake from Worm-
wood Scrubs Prison, also in London, in October 1967) had indicated
evident deficiencies in the security and control procedures then in place
in these and a number of other establishments as the subsequent Inquiry
by Earl Mountbatten made clear.6 The Report led to a number of hastily
contrived measures in prisons to tighten security procedures, and classify
prisoners in terms of their assessed risk of and potential for escape, all of
which made prison regimes more restrictive and oppressive7 rather than
purposeful andconstructive.

6 Home Office, Report of the Inquiry into Prison Escapes and Security by Admiral of the Fleet, the
Earl Mountbatten of Burma, Cmnd 3175, London: HMSO, 1966.
7 In particular in the sense of a widened use of CCTV camera coverage within and around the
perimeters of prisons to provide real-time surveillance of prisoner movement monitored from
central Control Rooms. The introduction of cameras within prisoner accommodation house-
blocks in particular was resented by the occupants, while also enabling enhanced protection
for staff dealing with prisoners on landings and in corridors used for movement when inmates
were out of cells or dormitories.
18 D. J. Cornwell

Emergence of the ‘Justice Model’

of Corrections
The search continued in Britain and the USA in particular during the
early 1970s for a strategic solution to the problems arising from criticisms
of, and the subsequent demise of the rehabilitative ethic, increasing rates
of recorded crime, and the continuing escalation of prison populations
which were common to both countries. It transpired that a potential
means might be found of averting the impending penal crisis in England
and Wales through a coalescence of agendas expressed by an apparently
disparate group of reformist bodies described by Barbara Hudson (1987)
in the following analysis:

The justice model was most self-consciously formulated by the liberal

lawyers anxious to restore due process to the heart of the justice system,
and in many ways it is ‘their’ model. It was, however, eagerly adopted
by many radicals among both criminal justice practitioners and among
academics, partly because it seemed to offer the prospect of progress in
correcting the abuses of rehabilitationism, and partly because, having not
pursued their criticism of prison regimes and procedures through to an
agenda for abolition of imprisonment, there was a vacuum left in the area
of radical-left reform proposals, a vacuum which was irresistibly filled by
the justice model. (Clarke 1978)

Indeed, the success of the justice model is due in large measure to the
way in which it appears to offer all things to all people. To the liberal
lawyers, it promises a restoration of the legitimacy and respect accorded
the legal system by reducing the perceived irrationality and unfairness of
a system which facilitates – indeed logically depends upon – wide discre-
tion andconsequent disparity in sentencing, with like offences receiving
very unlike sentences (e.g. Frankel 1973; Fogel 1975; Wilkins 1980);
to the right-wing, law-and-order lobby it appears to guarantee ‘swift
and sure punishment’, ending leniency and the softly, softly approach
of giving criminals over into the care of social workers rather than into
the control of the prisons system (e.g. Wilson 1977; Morgan 1978); to
radical academics, social workers and campaigners against the excessive
use of imprisonment, considering the offence means that a huge volume
 2 Change and Uncertainty in Penal Strategies 1945–1991 19

of petty, routine offending would be punished by conditional discharges,

fines, etc., and that imprisonment would become reserved for only the
most serious, most socially or physically dangerous of criminals, and that
people would cease to be imprisoned because of judicial prejudice against
the unemployed, members of ethnic minority groups, the young and
already socially disadvantaged. (e.g. American Friends Service Committee
1972; Schur 1973; Morris 1978; Morris et al. 1980) (Ibid.: 37–38)

Expressed in such terms, it is possible to summarise the essential elements

or premises of the justice model as:

• Punishment in proportion to the gravity of offences;

• Determinacy in sentencing and abandonment of indeterminate
punishment;
• Removal of judicial and executive discretion;
• Elimination of sentencing disparity; and,
• Protection of rights through restoration of due process.

In many respects, the justice model thus elaborated was fully in accord
with the recommendations of the Report of the Committee for the
Study of Incarceration in its publication Doing Justice: The Choice of
Punishments (von Hirsch 1976) published in the USA in the year before
Hudson’s analysis cited above.
Whatever the attractions the justice model may have held for its
proponents and for those of a moderate disposition towards fairer justice
and lesser dependence upon imprisonment as a sanction in England
and Wales in the 1970s, it was evidently too radical a prescription
for the then left-of-centre Labour administration to accept with enthu-
siasm in the prevailing political climate for a number of reasons. First,
and perhaps foremost, to accept it in terms of reforming legislation
would have brought the government into direct conflict with the judi-
ciary determined to preserve its independence and discretionary freedom
in sentencing criminal offences. Second, the period was one in which
rates of recorded crime were rising in tandem with widely increasing
affluence in a society considerably averse to crimes such as burglary,
car theft, robbery and criminal damage. Third, the mid- to late 1970s
20 D. J. Cornwell

also witnessed increasing unrest and disorder within the prison system,
focused upon by the mass media, and engendering scant public sympathy
for either prisoners or prison conditions.
However, as Adams (1992: 126–127) pointed out, ‘the public order
crisis in prisons was part of a wider crisis. Since the late 1960s, prob-
lems of public order in various parts of Britain became increasingly
apparent. The Home Office’s reticence about reporting prison rioting
from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s was consistent with the denial
that there was any significance in the incidents. It went hand in hand
with a reluctance to submit to the rigours of public investigation’. Thus,
the emergence of the justice model has also to be viewed as an attempt
to bring greater strategic accountability into the criminal justice arena,
and also overcome the cloak of secrecy within which it had traditionally
operated.
The decline and eventual demise of the justice model during the early
1980s, in spite of its potential merits in promoting a more humane and
considered approach to criminal punishment, was ultimately assured by
its potential to be co-opted for purposes far removed from those of its
conception. It also fell prey to a seismic shift in penal policy direction
with the election of a Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher
in 1979 which was to maintain it in parliamentary power until 1997.
Continuing unrest within the prisons reflected the general situation in
many urban centres of England and Wales as the 1980s began, and in
which in 1981-2, rioting took place in response to the government’s
policy of fiscal retrenchment and limitations on public spending. Rates
of unemployment had risen considerably, and overall manufacturing
production declined by more than 15 per cent (Marwick 2003: 228–
229).8 Though it may be claimed that this widespread increase in lawless
behaviour outside prisons had causes attributable to the economic situ-
ation, increasing unemployment, and inter-racial tensions in inner-city

8 In April 1981 a spate of urban rioting broke out at Brixton and Finsbury Park in London,
and subsequently, in July of that year in Southall in West London and Toxteth in Liverpool.
These were followed in later weeks by similar incidents in Brixton in London, Moss Side in
Manchester, Bristol and Leicester (Ibid.: 231–232). In the prisons over the same period, there
were serious disturbances and roof-climbing incidents at Wormwood Scrubs Prison in London,
Risley Remand Centre in Lancashire, and twenty-two other prison establishments throughout
England and Wales (Adams 1992, op. cit.: 159).
 2 Change and Uncertainty in Penal Strategies 1945–1991 21

areas, the situation within the prisons reflected prisoner dissatisfaction

with overcrowded conditions, poor regime provision, tensions between
inmate ethnic groupings, and a marked deterioration in prisoner: staff
industrial relations.
In 1978, and in response to the recurring incidence of national indus-
trial action by prison officers over staffing and working practices, the
(then) Labour government had set up a major Committee of Inquiry
into the UK Prison Services chaired by Mr. Justice May and with nine
members to ‘Inquire into the state of the Prison Services in the United
Kingdom’, and specifically:

• the size and nature of the prison population, and the capacity of the
prison services to accommodate it;
• the responsibility of the prison services for the security, control and
treatment of prisoners;
• the need to recruit and retain sufficient and suitable staff for the prison
services;
• the need to secure the efficient use of manpower and financial
resources in the prison services (Home Office 1979: iii).

We shall return to a more comprehensive discussion of the May Report

in Chapter 6.
Ultimately, by the mid-1980s the justice model had been rejected by
government and the judiciary, and almost abandoned by penal reform
groups, many academics and criminal justice practitioners. The increase
in lawlessness and increasing crime had alienated the general public from
any sympathetic understanding of the state of the prisons or of pris-
oner grievances, and the ‘law and order’ lobby for harsher punishment of
offenders was gifted a raison d’être for its demands. As Cullen and Gilbert
(1982) had asserted:

Justice model proponents have strongly advocated short sentences and the
proliferation of alternatives to imprisonment, whereas conservatives have
been convinced that longer prison terms are integral to the reduction of
the crime problem. In the end, one reality has thus become clear: the ‘bare
Another random document with
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equator. We say the “nearest,” because it does not actually mark the
position of the pole, but is about 1° 30’ from it. Owing, however, to
the motion of the pole of the celestial equator round that of the
ecliptic, it will, in about 2000 a.d., approach within 28’ of the north
pole; but after reaching this point of approximation it will begin to
recede. At the time of Hipparchus it was 12° distant from it (that is, in
156 b.c.); in 1785, 2° 2’. You may easily find its place in the “stellar
firmament,” for a line drawn between the stars α and β (hence called
the “Pointers”) of the constellation Ursa Major, or the Great Bear,
and produced in a northerly direction for about four and a half times
its own length, will almost touch the Pole-Star. Two thousand years
this post of honour, so to speak, was occupied by the star β of Ursa
Major; while, in about twelve thousand years, it will be occupied by
the star Vega in Lyra, which will be within 5° of the north pole.
The constellation of Ursa Major is always above the horizon of
Europe, and hence it has been an object of curiosity to its inhabitants
from the remotest antiquity. Our readers may easily recognize it by
three stars which form a triangle in its tail, while four more form a
quadrangle in the body of the imaginary bear. In the triangle, the first
star at the tip of the tail is Benetnasch of the second magnitude; the
second, Mizar; and the third, Alioth. In the quadrangle, the first star
at the root of the tail is named Megrez; the second below it, Phad;
the third, in a horizontal direction, Merak; and the fourth, above the
latter, Dubhe, of the first magnitude.
 URSA MAJOR AND URSA MINOR.
In Ursa Minor the only conspicuous star is Polaris, of which we
have recently spoken.
We subjoin a list of the northern constellations, including the
names of those who formed them, the number of their visible stars,
and the names of the most important and conspicuous.

NORTHERN CONSTELLATIONS.
No. of Principal
Constellations. Author.
Stars. Stars.
Ursa Minor, the Lesser Bear Aratus. 24 Polaris, 2.
Ursa Major, the Great Bear Aratus. 87 Dubhe, 1;
Alioth, 2.
Perseus, and Head of Medusa Aratus. 59 Algenib, 2;
Algol, 2.
Auriga, the Waggoner Aratus. 66 Capella, 1.
Bootes, the Herdsman Aratus. 54 Arcturus, 1.
Draco, the Dragon Aratus. 80 Rastaben, 3.
 Cepheus Aratus. 35 Alderamin,
3.
Canes Venatici, the Greyhounds Hevelius. 25
Chara and Asteria
Cor Caroli, Heart of Charles II Halley. 3
Triangulum, the Triangle Aratus. 16
Triangulum Minus, the Lesser Hevelius. 10
Triangle
Musca, the Fly Bode. 6
Lynx Hevelius. 44
Leo Minor, the Lesser Lion Hevelius. 53
Coma Berenices, Berenice’s Hair Tycho 43
Brahe.
Cameleopardalis, the Giraffe Hevelius. 58
Mons Menelaus, Mount Menelaus Hevelius. 11
Corona Borealis, the Northern Aratus. 21
Crown
Serpens, the Serpent Aratus. 64
Scutum Sobieski, Sobieski’s Hevelius. 8
Shield
Hercules, with Cerberus Aratus. 113 Ras
Algratha,
3.
Serpentarius, or Ophiuchus, the Aratus. 74 Ras Aliagus,
Serpent-Bearer 2.
Taurus Poniatowski, or the Bull of Poezobat. 7
Poniatowski
Lyra, the Harp Aratus. 22 Vega, 1.
Vulpeculus et Anser, the Fox and Hevelius. 37
the Goose
Sagitta, the Arrow Aratus. 18
Aquila, the Eagle, with Antinous Aratus. 71 Altair, 1.
Delphinus, the Dolphin Aratus. 18
Cygnus, the Swan Aratus. 81 Deneb, 1.
Cassiopeia, the Lady in her Chair Aratus. 55
Equulus, the Horse’s Head Ptolemy. 10
Lacerta, the Lizard Hevelius. 16
Pegasus, the Flying Horse Aratus. 89 Markab, 2.
Andromeda Aratus. 66 Almaac, 2.
Turandus, the Reindeer Lemonnier. 12

A few remarks in reference to some of these constellations, and

the glorious orbs which they help to indicate to mortal eyes, may fitly
close this chapter.
We have already alluded to Ursa Major, which forms one of the
most conspicuous objects of the northern heavens. It has borne
different names, at different times, and among different peoples. It
was the Ἄρκτος μεγάλη of the Greeks; the “Septem triones” of the
Latins. It is known in some parts as David’s Chariot; the Chinese call
it, Tcheou-pey.
Night and day this constellation watches above the northern
horizon, revolving, with slow and majestic march, around Polaris, in
four and twenty hours. The quadrangle of stars in the body of the
Great Bear forms the wheels of the chariot; the triangle in its tail, the
chariot-pole. Above the second of the three latter shines the small
star Alcor, also named the Horseman. The Arabs call it Saidak, or
“the Test,” because they use it to try the range and strength of a
person’s vision.
This brilliant northern constellation, composed, with the exception
of δ, of stars of the second magnitude, has frequently been
celebrated by poets. We may paraphrase, for the advantage of our
readers, a glowing apostrophe from the pen of the American Ware:—
With what grand and majestic steps, he says, it moves forward in
its eternal circle, following among the stars its regal way in a slow
and silent splendour! Mighty creation, I salute thee! I love to see thee
wandering in the shining paths like a giant proud of his strong girdle
—severe, indefatigable, resolved—whose feet never lag in the road
which lies before them. Other tribes abandon their nocturnal course
and rest their weary orbs under the waves; but thou, thou never
closest thy burning eyes, and never suspendest thy determined
steps. Forward, ever forward! While systems change, and suns
retire, and worlds fall to sleep and awake again, thou pursuest thy
endless march. The near horizon attempts to check thee, but in vain.
A watchful sentinel, thou never quittest thy age-long duty; but,
without allowing thyself to be surprised by sleep, thou guardest the
fixed light of the universe, and preventest the north from ever
forgetting its place.
 Seven stars dwell in that shining company; the eye embraces
them all at a single glance; their distances from one another,
however, are not less than the distance of each from Earth. And this
again is the reciprocal distance of the celestial centres or foci. From
depths of heaven, unexplored by thought, the piercing rays dart
across the void, revealing to our senses innumerable worlds and
systems. Let us arm our vision with the telescope, and let us survey
the firmament. The skies open wide; a shower of sparkling fires
descends upon our head; the stars close up their ranks, are
condensed in regions so remote that their swift rays (swifter than
aught else in creation) must travel for centuries before they can
reach our Earth. Earth, sun, and ye constellations, what are ye
among this infinite immensity and the multitude of the Divine works!
If we face towards the Pole-Star, which, as we have seen,
preserves its place in the centre of the northern region of the sky, we
have the south behind us, the east is on our right, the west upon our
left. All the stars revolving round the Pole-Star, from right to left,
should be recognized according to their mutual relations rather than
referred to the cardinal points. On the other side of Polaris, as
compared with the Great Bear, we find another constellation which is
easily recognized. If from the central star δ we carry a line to the
Pole, and then prolong it for an equal distance, we traverse the
constellation of Cassiopeia, composed of five stars of the third
magnitude, disposed somewhat like the outer jambs of the letter M.
The small star χ, terminating the square, gives it also the form of a
chair. This group occupies every possible situation in revolving round
the Pole, being at one time above it, at another below, now on the
left, and then on the right; but it is always readily found, because, like
Ursa Major, to which it is invariably opposite, it never sets. The Pole-
Star is the axle round which these two constellations revolve.
If we now draw, from the stars α and δ in Ursa Major, two lines
meeting at the Pole, and afterwards extend them beyond
Cassiopeia, they will abut on the square of Pegasus, which is
bounded on one of its sides by a group, or series, of three stars
resembling the triangle in Ursa Major. These three belong to the
constellation of Andromeda (α, β, and γ), and themselves abut on
another three-orbed group, that of Perseus.
The last star in the square of Perseus is also the first α of
Andromeda: the other three are named, Algenib, γ; Markab, α; and
Scheat, β. To the north of Andromeda β, and near a small star, ν, the
Arctic traveller will discern an oblong nebula, which may be
compared to the light of a taper seen through a sheet of horn; this is
the first nebula to which any allusion occurs in the annals of
astronomy. In Perseus α, an orb of great brilliancy, on the prolonged
plane of the three principal stars of Andromeda, shines with steady
lustre between two less dazzling spheres, and forms in conjunction
with them a concave arc very easily distinguished. Of this arc we
may avail ourselves as a new point of departure. By prolonging it in
the direction of δ, we come to a very bright star of the first
magnitude, the Goat. By forming a right angle to this prolongation in
a southerly direction we come to that glorious mass of stars, not very
frequently above the Polar horizon, the Pleiads. These were held in
evil repute among the ancients. Their appearance was supposed to
be ominous of violent storms, and Valerius Flaccus speaks of them
as fatal to ships.
 NEBULA IN ANDROMEDA.
Algol, or Medusa’s Head, known to astronomers as Perseus β,
belongs to the singular class of Variable Stars. Instead of shining
with a constant lustre, like other orbs, it is sometimes very brilliant,
and sometimes very pale; passing, apparently, from the second to
the fourth magnitude. According to Goodricke, its period of variation
is 2 days 20 hours 48 minutes. This phenomenal character was first
observed by Maraldi in 1694; but the duration of the change was
determined by Goodricke in 1782. For two days and fourteen hours it
continues at its brightest, and shines a glory in the heavens. Then its
lustre suddenly begins to wane, and in three hours and a half is
reduced to its minimum. Its weakest period, however, does not last
more than about fifteen minutes. It then begins to increase in
brightness, and in three hours and a half more it is restored to its full
splendour; thus passing through its succession of changes in 2 days
20 hours 48 minutes.
This singular periodicity suggested to Goodricke the idea of some
opaque body revolving around the star, and by interposing between
it and the Earth cutting off a portion of its light. Algol is one of the
most interesting of the welcome stars which kindle in the long Arctic
darkness.
The star ζ in Perseus, situated above the “stormy Pleiads,” is
double; that is, a binary star. ξ in Ursa Major is also a twin-star; and
so is Polaris, the second and smaller star appearing a mere speck in
comparison with its companion.

These are the principal stars and starry groups in the

Circumpolar Regions of the heavens, on one side; let us now turn
our attention to the other.
For this purpose we must again take the Great Bear as our
starting-point. Prolonging the tail in its curvature, the Arctic traveller
notes, at some distance from it, a star of the first magnitude,
Arcturus, or Boötes α. This star, though without any authority, was at
one time considered the nearest to the Earth of all the starry host.
About 10° to the north-east of it is Mirac, or ε Boötes; one of the
most beautiful objects in the heavens, on account of the contrasted
hues, yellow and azure, of the two stars composing it. Unfortunately,
the twin-orbs cannot be distinctly seen except with a telescope of
two hundred magnifying power.
A small ring of stars to the left of Boötes is appropriately known
as Corona Borealis, or the Northern Crown.
 The constellation of Boötes forms a pentagon; and the stars
composing it are all of the third magnitude, with the exception of α,
which is of the first. Arcturus, as we have said, was anciently
considered the star nearest to the Earth. It is, at all events, one of
the nearest, and belongs to the small number of those whose
distance our astronomers have succeeded in calculating. It is 61
trillions, 712,000 millions of leagues from our planet; a distance of
which we can form no appreciable conception. Moreover, it is a
coloured star; on examining it through a telescope we see that it is of
the same hue as the “red planet Mars.”
By carrying a line from the Polar Star to Arcturus, and raising a
perpendicular in the middle of this line, opposite to Ursa Major, the
observer of the Arctic skies will discover one of the most luminous
orbs of night, Vega, or α Lyra, near the Milky Way. The star β Lyra, or
Sheliak, is a variable star, changing from the third to the fifth
magnitude, and accomplishing its variation in 6 days 10 hours and
34 minutes. β and ε Lyra are quadruple systems, each composed of
binary or twin-stars.
The line drawn from Arcturus to Vega cuts the constellation of
Hercules.
Between Ursa Major and Ursa Minor may be observed a
prolonged series of small stars, coiling, as it were, in a number of
convolutions, and extending towards Vega: these belong to the
constellation of the Dragon.
Such are the principal objects which attract the attention of the
traveller, when contemplating the star-studded firmament of the
Arctic night.
 CHAPTER III.
THE POLAR SEAS: ICEBERGS—ICE-FLOES—THE SEAL—THE WALRUS THE
NARWHAL—THE WHALE—SUNDRY FORMS OF MARINE LIFE.

hose masses of ice which, towering to a considerable

elevation above the surface of the water, are carried hither
and thither by the currents of the Polar Sea, are known as
Icebergs. They are fresh-water formations, originating in the great
glaciers of the northern highlands. For as the rivers continuously
pour their waters into the ocean, so do the glaciers incessantly glide
downward from the head of the valleys which they occupy, until,
arriving on the coast, they throw off their terminal projections, to be
carried afar by the action of the tidal waves.
These bergs, or floating mountains, are sometimes 250 to 300
feet above the level of the sea, and their capacity or bulk is invariably
equal to their height. From their specific gravity it has been
calculated that the volume of an iceberg below the water is eight
times that of the portion rising above it. They are frequently of the
most imposing magnitude. Ross, in his first expedition, fell in with
one in Baffin Bay, at a distance of seven leagues from land, which
had gone aground in sixty-one fathoms water. Its dimensions,
according to Lieutenant Parry, were 4,169 yards in length, 3,869
yards in breadth, and 51 feet in height. Its configuration is described
as resembling that of the back of the Isle of Wight, while its cliffs
recalled those chalky ramparts which stretch their glittering line to
the west of Dover. Its weight was computed at 1,292,397,673 tons.
Captain Graab examined a mass, on the west coast of Greenland,
which rose 120 feet out of the water, measured 4,000 feet in
circumference at the base, and was calculated to be equal in bulk to
upwards of 900,000,000 cubic feet. Dr. Hayes took the
measurements of a berg which had stranded off the little harbour of
Tessuissak, to the north of Melville Bay. The square wall which faced
towards his base of triangulation was somewhat more than three-
quarters of a mile in length, and 315 feet in height. As it was nearly
square-sided above the sea, it would be of the same shape beneath
it; and, according to the ratio already given, must have drifted
aground in a depth of fully half a mile. In other words, from base to
summit it must have stood as high as the peak of Snowdon. Its
cubical contents cannot have been less than about 27,000,000,000
feet, nor its weight than 2,000,000,000 tons!
When seen from a distance, the spectacle of any considerable
number of these slowly-moving mountains is very impressive, and it
becomes particularly magnificent if it should be lit up by the
splendour of the midnight sun. They are not only majestic in size, but
sublime in appearance, at one time assuming the likeness of a grand
cathedral church, at another, of a lofty obelisk; now of a dazzling
pyramid, and now of a cluster of lofty towers. Nature would seem to
have lavished upon them all her architectural fancy; and as they are
grandly swept along, one might be pardoned for supposing them to
be the sea-washed palaces of a race of ocean Titans.
 ARCHED ICEBERG OFF THE GREENLAND COAST.
In Melville Bay, Dr. Kane’s ship anchored to an iceberg, which
protected it from the fury of a violent gale. But he had not long
enjoyed the tranquil shelter it afforded, when a din of loud crackling
sounds was heard above; and small fragments of ice, not larger than
a walnut, began to dot the water, like the first big drops of a thunder-
shower. Dr. Kane and his crew did not neglect these indications; they
had barely time to cast off, however, before the face of the icy cliff fell
in ruins, crashing like near artillery.
 Afterwards he made fast to a larger berg, which he describes as
a moving breakwater, and of gigantic proportions; it kept its course
steadily towards the north.
When he got under weigh, and made for the north-east, through
a labyrinth of ice-floes, he was favoured with a gorgeous spectacle,
which hardly any excitement of peril could have induced him to
overlook. The midnight sun came out over the northern crest of the
huge berg, kindling variously-coloured fires on every part of its
surface, and making the ice around one sublime transparency of
illuminated gem-work, blazing carbuncles, and rubies and molten
gold.

AMONG THE BERGS—A NARROW ESCAPE.

Dr. Hayes describes an immense berg which resembled in its
general aspect the Westminster Palace of Sir Charles Barry’s
creation. It went to ruin before his eyes. First one tall tower tumbled
headlong into the water, starting from its surface an innumerable
swarm of gulls; then another followed; and at length, after five hours
of terrible disruption and crashing, not a fragment that rose fifty feet
above the water remained of this architectural colossus of ice.
These floating isles of ice are carried southward fully two
thousand miles from their parent glaciers to melt in the Atlantic,
where they communicate a perceptible coldness to the water for
thirty or forty miles around, while their influence on the atmospheric
temperature may be recognized at a greater distance. Their number
is extraordinary. As many as seven hundred bergs, each loftier than
the dome of St. Paul’s, some than the cross of St. Peter’s, have
been seen at once in the Polar basin; as if the Frost King had
despatched an armada to oppose the rash enterprise of man in
penetrating within his dominions. The waves break against them as
against an iron-bound coast, and often the spray is flung over their
very summits, like the spray of the rolling waters of the Channel over
the crest of the Eddystone Lighthouse. The ice crumbles from their
face, and tumbles down into the sea with a roar like that of artillery;
and as they waste away, through the combined action of air and
water, they occasionally lose their equilibrium and topple over,
producing a swell and a violent commotion which break up the
neighbouring ice-fields: the tumult spreads far and wide, and thunder
seems to peal around.
The fractures or rents frequently visible in the glittering cliffs of
the icebergs are of an emerald green, and look like patches of
beautiful fresh sward on cliffs of chalk; while pools of water of the
most exquisite sapphirine blue shine resplendent on their surface, or
leap down their craggy sides in luminous cascades. Even in the night
they are readily distinguished from afar by their effulgence; and in
foggy, hazy weather, by a peculiar blackness in the atmosphere. As
the Greenland Current frequently drifts them to the south of
Newfoundland, and even to the 40th or 39th parallel of latitude, the
ships and steamers crossing between Europe and America
sometimes meet them on their track. To come into collision with them
is certain destruction; and it is probable that some of those ill-fated
vessels which have left their harbours in safety, but have never since
been heard of,—as, for example, the steamer President,—have
perished through this cause.
But if they are sometimes dangerous to the mariner, they often
prove his security. As most of their bulk lies below the water-surface,
they are either carried along by under-currents against the wind, or
else from their colossal size they are able to defy the strongest gale,
and to move along with majestic slowness when every other kind of
ice is driven swiftly past them. And hence it happens that, when the
wind is contrary, the whaler is glad to bring his ship into smooth
water under their lee. In describing the difficulties of his passage
through the loose and drifting ice near Cape York, and the broken
ice-fields, Dr. Kane records the assistance he derived from the large
icebergs, to which he moored his vessel, and thus was enabled, he
says, to hold his own, however rapidly the surface-floes were
passing by him to the south.
Yet anchoring to a berg brings with it an occasional peril. As we
have already said, large pieces frequently loosen themselves from
the summit or sides, and fall into the sea with a far-resounding crash.
When this operation, “calving,” as it is called, takes place, woe to the
unfortunate ship which lies beneath!
All ice becomes excessively brittle under the influence of the sun
or of a temperate atmosphere, and a single blow from an axe will
suffice to split a huge berg asunder, burying the heedless adventurer
beneath the ruins, or hurling him into the yawning chasm.
Dr. Scoresby records the adventure of two sailors who had been
sent to attach an anchor to a berg. They set to work to hew a hole in
the ice, but scarcely had the first blow been struck, when the
colossal mass rent from top to bottom and fell asunder, the two
halves falling in opposite directions with a tremendous uproar. One
of the sailors, with remarkable presence of mind, instantly clambered
up the huge fragment on which he was sitting, and remained rocking
to and fro on the dizzy summit until its equilibrium was restored; the
other, falling between the masses, would probably have been
crushed to death if the current caused by their commotion had not
swept him within reach of the boat that was waiting for them.
 Fastening to a berg, says Sherard Osborn, has its risks and
dangers. Sometimes the first stroke of the man setting the ice-
anchor, by its concussion, causes the iceberg to break up, and the
people so employed run great risk of being injured; at another time,
vessels obliged to make fast under the steep side of a berg have
been seriously damaged by pieces detaching themselves from
overhead; and, again, the projecting masses, called tongues, which
form under water the base of the berg, have been known to break
off, and strike a vessel so severely as to sink her. All these perils are
duly detailed by every Arctic navigator, who is always mindful, in
mooring to an iceberg, to look for a side which is low and sloping,
without any tongues under water.
Captain Parry was once witness of that sublime spectacle, which,
though of frequent occurrence, is seldom seen by human eyes, the
entire dissolution of an enormous iceberg.
Its huge size and massiveness had been specially remarked, and
men thought that it might well resist “a century of sun and thaw.” It
looked as large as Westminster Abbey. All on board Captain Parry’s
ship described as a most wonderful spectacle this iceberg, without
any warning, completely breaking up. The sea around it became a
seething caldron, from the violent plunging of the masses, as they
broke and re-broke in a thousand pieces. The floes, torn up for a
distance of two miles around it, by the violent action of the rolling
waters, threatened, from the agitation of the ice, to destroy any
vessel that had been amongst them; and Captain Parry and his crew
congratulated themselves that they were sufficiently far from the
scene to witness its sublimity without being involved in its danger.
 ICEBERG AND ICE-FIELD, MELVILLE BAY, GREENLAND
Icebergs chiefly abound in Baffin Bay, and in the gulfs and inlets
connected with it. They are particularly numerous in the great
indentation known as Melville Bay, the whole interior of the country
bordering upon it being the seat of immense glaciers, and these are
constantly “shedding off” icebergs of the largest dimensions. The
greater bulk of these is, as we have explained, below the water-line;
and the consequent depth to which they sink when floating subjects
them to the action of the deeper ocean-currents, while their broad
surface above the water is, of course, acted on by the wind. It
happens, therefore, as Dr. Kane remarks, that they are found not
infrequently moving in different directions from the floes around
them, and preventing them for a time from freezing into a united
mass. Still, in the late winter, when the cold has thoroughly set in,
Melville Bay becomes a continuous mass of ice, from Cape York to
the Devil’s Thumb. At other times, this region justifies the name the
whalers have bestowed upon it of “Bergy Hole.”
Captain Beechey, in his voyage with Buchan, in 1818, had an
opportunity of witnessing the formation of a “berg,” or rather of two of
these immense masses. In Magdalena Bay he had taken the ship’s
launch near the shore to examine a magnificent glacier, when the
discharge of a gun caused an instantaneous disruption of its bulk. A
noise resembling thunder was heard in the direction of the glacier,
and in a few seconds more an immense piece broke away, and fell
headlong into the sea. The crew of the launch, supposing
themselves beyond the reach of its influence, quietly looked upon
the scene, when a sea arose and rolled towards the shore with such
rapidity that the boat was washed upon the beach and filled. As soon
as their astonishment had subsided, they examined the boat, and
found her so badly stove that it was necessary to repair her before
they could return to their ship. They had also the curiosity to
measure the distance the boat had been carried by the wave, and
ascertained that it was ninety-six feet.
A short time afterwards, when Captain Beechey and Lieutenant
Franklin had approached one of these stupendous walls of ice, and
were endeavouring to search into the innermost recess of a deep
cavern that lay near the foot of the glacier, they suddenly heard a
report, as of a cannon, and turning to the quarter whence it
proceeded, perceived an immense section of the front of the glacier
sliding down from the height of two hundred feet at least into the sea,
and dispersing the water in every direction, accompanied by a loud
grinding noise, and followed by an outflow of water, which, being
previously lodged in the fissures, now made its escape in
innumerable tiny flashing rills and cataracts.
The mass thus disengaged at first disappeared wholly under
water, and nothing could be seen but a violent seething of the sea,
and the ascent of clouds of glittering spray, such as that which
occurs at the foot of a great waterfall. But after a short time it
reappeared, raising its head fully a hundred feet above the surface,
with water streaming down on every side; and then labouring, as if
doubtful which way it should fall, it rolled over, rocked to and fro for a
few minutes, and finally became settled.
On approaching and measuring it, Beechey found it to be nearly
a quarter of a mile in circumference, and sixty feet out of the water.
Knowing its specific gravity, and making a fair allowance for its
inequalities, he computed its weight at 421,660 tons.
In Parry’s first voyage he passed in one day fifty icebergs of large
dimensions, just after crossing the Arctic Circle; and on the following
day a still more extended chain of ice-peaks of still larger size,
against which a heavy southerly swell was violently driven, dashing
the loose ice with tremendous force, sometimes flinging a white
spray over them to the height of more than one hundred feet, and
accompanied by a loud noise “exactly resembling the roar of distant
thunder.”
Between one of these bergs and a detached floe the Hecla,
Parry’s ship, had nearly, as the whalers say, been “nipped,” or
crushed. The berg was about one hundred and forty feet high, and
aground in one hundred and twenty fathoms, so that its whole height
must have exceeded eight hundred feet; that is, it was of a bulk
equal to St. Catherine’s Down in the Isle of Wight.
In his second voyage Parry speaks of fifty-four icebergs visible at
one time, some of which were not less than two hundred feet above
the sea; and again of thirty of these huge masses, many of them
whirled about by the tides like straws on a mill-stream.
Icebergs can originate only in regions where glaciers abound: the
former are the offspring of the latter, and where land unsuitable to
the production of the latter does not exist, the former are never
found. Hence, in Baffin Bay, where steep cliffs of cold granite frown
over almost fathomless waters, the “monarch of glacial formations”
floats slowly from the ravine which has been its birthplace, until fairly
launched into the depths of ocean, and, “after long years,” drifts into
the warmer regions of the Atlantic to assist in the preservation of
Nature’s laws of equilibrium of temperature of the air and water.