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Pastoral Care for the Incarcerated:
Hope Deferred, Humanity Diminished?

David Kirk Beedon
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Pastoral Care for
the Incarcerated
Hope Deferred,
Humanity Diminished?
David Kirk Beedon
Pastoral Care for the Incarcerated
David Kirk Beedon
Pastoral Care for the

Incarcerated
Hope Deferred, Humanity Diminished?
David Kirk Beedon
JBVISTA
Newcastle under Lyme, UK
ISBN 978-3-031-13271-1 ISBN 978-3-031-13272-8 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13272-8
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2022
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Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
This book is dedicated primarily to the memory of the indeterminately
sentenced man found dead in his cell at the prison where this pastoral
enquiry was undertaken. His tragic death and the relational texture of the
last conversation the author had with him inspired this hope- and
humanity-seeking enquiry.
Acknowledgements
At the heart of this book is a course of study in the field of practical theol-
ogy I undertook by way of professional development as a prison chaplain.
Early in my studies Dr Harry Annison’s personal encouragement, as a
criminologist specialising in matters to do with the sentence of
Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP), strengthened my resolve to
undertake this interdisciplinary endeavour. Similarly, Dr Sarah Lewis’ sup-
port and work on rehabilitative growth was invaluable.
The supervision I enjoyed during my studies was excellent. I am grate-
ful to Professor Stephen Pattison and Dr Amy Daughton for their percep-
tive oversight and to Reverend Chrissie Wood for her vital pastoral
supervision and psychological insights. My companions in the community
of practice constituted by the Doctorate in Practical Theology programme
at the University of Birmingham (UK) made the learning journey less
challenging and their input frequently enriched the quality of this enquiry.
Practical theologian Reverend Canon Dr Nigel Rooms provided a thor-
ough critique of an earlier version of this work, so any surviving shortcom-
ings remain the author’s responsibility alone.
I am grateful for the assistance offered by many of my former colleagues
in Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, especially those in the
Chaplaincy Department where I served who ‘held the fort’ many times
while I conducted interviews and group work. I also thank the governors
who provided both their permission for this enquiry to be undertaken in
their establishment and also personal encouragement. This does not imply
any official endorsement of views and opinions contained in this book
which are wholly my own.
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful for the pastoral forbearance of Reverend Debra Dyson

who was a regular recipient and reader of my reflective and reflexive jour-
naling output. She has been a wise conversation partner and companion in
my reflections.
Mrs Anne Brooks transcribed the interviews. Those transcripts are the
core material for this pastoral enquiry, representing as they do the narra-
tives shared by the seventeen indeterminately sentenced men and six
members of staff who participated in this endeavour. She did marvellously
to cope with ‘prison-speak’, a variety of accents and the sometimes-difficult
recording acoustics provided by penal spaces. Her willingness to psycho-
emotionally enter the world of interviewees was typical of her character.
Much of the material in this book was proofread for conventions of
grammar, spelling and language by Mr Leslie Robertson. In addition to
this practical task, he also provided invaluable feedback on my thesis from
a ‘coalface’ perspective as an Offender Manager (prison-based Parole
Officer) who has much experience working with numerous men serving
an IPP sentence.
None of this work could have been completed without the willingness
of the seventeen indeterminately sentenced men and six prison staff who
shared candidly with me some of their personal and professional stories.
Regarding the incarcerated interviewees, I continue to find the way they
entrusted their stories to me as a pastoral enquirer deeply humbling. The
telling of those stories is the heart of this work’s inspiration.
Last but absolutely not least is my wife, Julie. It was in a bedtime con-
versation some years ago that she suggested I choose the ‘IPP issue’ as an
area to study. Subsequently, she has been unflagging in her practical and
financial support. Especially in the personally most challenging elements
of my journey of enquiry, her presence, love and care for me have embod-
ied beautifully the profound humane regard described and promoted in
this book.
Contents
1 Introduction: Where and How to Start 1
Part I Defining the Issue 19
2 Modern Mass Incarceration: Can it Be Humanised? 21
3 A
Case in Point: A Socio-Historical Critique of
Indeterminate Sentences 45
Part II Describing the Context 71
4 Entering Lived Experience: From Theory to Reality 73
5 Tales From the Shadow of Despair103
Part III Reflecting on Practice 139
6 Seeking Humanity and Hope141
7 A Pastoral Response169
ix
x Contents
Part IV Acting Compassionately 197
8 Custodial Compassion: A Pastoral Paradox199
9 Loose
Ends, Disappearances and Leavings: A Reflective
Pastoral Epilogue237
Appendix: Remaining Found Poems249
Index267
List of Figures
Fig. 1.1 The pastoral cycle (Adapted—author’s design) 6

Fig. 1.2 Life as a Film movie style poster—ID17 14
Fig. A.1 Life as a Film movie style poster—ID02 251
xi
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Where and How to Start
Come now into the cell with me and stay here and feel if you can and if
you will that time, whatever time it was, for however long, for time
means nothing in this cell.
—Keenan (1992, 63)
Beginnings
I am going to take the reader on a journey of enquiry. For some of you the
landscape we will explore will be familiar: the lived experience of incarcer-
ated space. For others, the terrain may be unfamiliar and, at times, disturb-
ing. The words this chapter opens with have haunted me from my very
first reading of Brian Keenan’s account of his captivity as a hostage in
Beirut. They evoke a negation of temporality—the making of time mean-
ingless. I frequently encountered this sense of time in pastoral encounters
I experienced after I changed ministerial roles in 2012. After over two
decades in English parishes, I entered Her Majesty’s Prison Service in
England and Wales as an Anglican chaplain. I always read the passage from
An Evil Cradling as offering an invitation to enter the world of those held
captive. Entering the lived experience of those who sought pastoral care is
something I understood to be my role as a chaplain. It is something I
likewise invite you, the reader, to do: ‘Come with me’.
As a novice chaplain, the invitation spoke to my undeveloped under-
standing of penal pastoral care. It evoked a desire to enter empathically the
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
D. K. Beedon, Pastoral Care for the Incarcerated,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13272-8_1
2 D. K. BEEDON
lived experience of those in my care and custody so as to better serve

them. A year after entering the Prison Service I entered a part-time univer-
sity study programme in practical theology to deepen my understanding
of the challenging ministerial context which I had entered. At heart, I
wished to make my professional practice more pastorally intentional. This
book is the fruit of the context-based and practice-focused study pro-
gramme that I undertook for six and a half years, including two years of
on-the-ground research fieldwork which included interviews and
group work.
Two years into my studies, the death in custody of a man I was involved
with pastorally became the tragic motivation for the focus of the enquiry
this book describes. The man was found hung in his cell one morning at
first unlock. He was serving an indeterminate sentence of Imprisonment
for Public Protection (IPP). The indeterminacy of the sentence meant that
he knew neither when or if ever he would be released. The last time we
spoke he stated his belief that he would only be released “in a body bag”.
He had lost hope. I will return to this story in Chap. 5.
The quote from An Evil Cradling resonated for me with the hope
diminishing indeterminacy which is a central theme of my pastoral enquiry
and that has led to the self-inflicted death of a number of people serving
an IPP sentence in England and Wales. The passage’s invitation evokes
Keenan’s intention to draw the reader into his incarcerated state. He
wishes the reader to study it from the inside out. An Evil Cradling’s nar-
rative approach inspired the ethnographic methodology I have followed in
this enquiry. Employing this approach, I have sought to access the lived
experience of the seventeen men on an IPP sentence who volunteered to
be interviewed (see Chap. 4). A core aim of my pastoral exploration as
here recorded is to invite the reader to follow me into carceral space and
enter the lived experience of those weighed down by indeterminacy.
Contextual Factors
In prisons in England and Wales establishments are categorised according
to the security factors associated with the people they hold. People in cus-
tody are categorised on risk factors of (1) harm to the public should they
escape; (2) threat of escape; and (3) danger of undermining control or
stability of a prison. Categories range from A (High Security) through to
D (Open, pre-release conditions). My enquiry was undertaken within a
Category C (medium security) large male prison in England. It offered
1 INTRODUCTION: WHERE AND HOW TO START 3
education, training and resettlement opportunities to over a thousand

residents although, according to an official inspection in 2018, about one
in five men remained locked in their cells during the working day (unref-
erenced for anonymity).
Although the IPP sentence was abolished in 2012, as of September
2019 (when my enquiry was wrapping up) approximately 2400 people
remained in custody serving the sentence in England and Wales. The vast
majority of them were significantly over their ‘minimum tariff’, the least
time in custody they had to serve (see Chap. 3 for the background to the
IPP sentence). My enquiry’s interviews were conducted between February
2017 and April 2018, one of the most challenging times for prisons across
England and Wales. Loss of a third of uniformed staff as a result of auster-
ity cuts (following the global economic downturn post-2007), alongside
the increased smuggling and use of new and highly potent psychoactive
substances, greatly destabilised prison safety and security. This heightened
my concerns around work amongst a vulnerable group and concentrated
my attention on what could safely and feasibly be achieved within the
short-term, context-based and practice-focused enquiry I envisaged. This
raised questions about how I was to approach and undertake this enquiry.
Whilst my enquiry was undertaken in an English prison I have, where
possible, provided comparative information, especially in Part I (‘Defining
the Issue’), from the US. This is particularly regarding socio-historical fac-
tors that have shaped and continue to impact on places of mass incarcera-
tion. There are similarities and dissimilarities between penal systems on
either side of the Atlantic which I invite readers to discover for themselves.
My pastoral enquiry did not seek to compare and contrast the two sys-
tems. One similarity is the mixed economy of ‘public’ and ‘private’ prisons
in both UK and US penal systems. A dissimilarity is that whilst in England
and Wales there is a unified body that oversees all the 117 prisons there
(Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, part of the Ministry of
Justice) a number of bodies have oversight in the US. Federal prisons
(122) are supervised by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, state prisons (1833)
by each particular state’s Department of Corrections and local jails (3134)
by local law enforcement. This complexity, I have discovered, has made
access to comparative data sometimes impossible. But I have tried where
possible to give comparisons.
Turning now to the theological approach I took I must confess that the
last time I undertook academically rigorous study was in the early 1990s
(Beedon 1992). At that time, I used a highly theoretical and philosophical
4 D. K. BEEDON
approach to my theological subject (ecclesiology) which I studied in a par-

ish setting. Once I had re-located to a penal context and wished to under-
take an enquiry into the practice of pastoral care, this approach seemed
ill-suited to my endeavour. The theological sub-discipline of practical the-
ology offered a heuristic approach to pastoral enquiry that struck me as
highly appropriate.
Practical Theology and the Pastoral Cycle

The enquiry described in this book was undertaken as both a pastoral
endeavour (as a practitioner) and an academic contribution (as a student
in the field of practical theology). Practical theology is “critical reflection
that places experiences, lived assumptions and actions in dialogue with
religious belief, tradition and practice for the sake of transformation”
(Goto 2016, xix). The variety of topics discussed in disciplinary compen-
dia reveals a focus on context-based and practice-focused studies
(Woodward et al. 2000; Miller-McLemore 2012; Cahalan and Mikoski
2014; Miller-McLemore and Mercer 2016). Human flourishing, as a pri-
mary purpose of pastoral care, is also central to practical theology
(Cameron 2012). Its humane and practical foci suggested it would be an
apt approach for my enquiry into a pastoral response to the human dimin-
ishment associated with the IPP sentence.
My initial interest was in the generic area of ‘the humanising of incar-
ceration’ (Beedon 2016a, 2017). A key method of enquiry for many stu-
dents and researchers in practical theology is the pastoral cycle. Adapting
and employing this method helped me become more focused as I sought
to identify a specific topic that was potentially transformative of penal
practice and would contribute to the relevant body/bodies of knowledge
associated with my context. The pastoral cycle provided a clear hermeneu-
tical process that I could follow amidst the demands and distractions of
part-time work-based study alongside full-time employment in a challeng-
ing environment.
Due to practical theology’s interest in ‘practice’ in its various forms
(e.g. ministerial, ecclesial, pastoral, social and political), many practitioners
have embraced the pastoral cycle’s action-learning approach to research
(Ballard and Pritchard 2006, 81ff.; Cameron 2012). The cycle is derived
from late twentieth-century action-learning methods (Kolb 1984; Schön
1983). In theological circles, it has also found expression in the dialectical
method for conscientization and praxis via Liberation Theology’s
hermeneutical circle of ideological critique and theological reflection

(Segundo 1976, 7ff.; Freire 1985; Pattison 1997, 61; Thompson, Pattison,
and Thompson 2008, 50–71; Cameron 2012, 3–9; Bennett 2013, 102).
Conscientization is the process of acquiring a critical consciousness con-
cerning political processes and the (mis)use of power in social systems that
lead to human diminishment.
In practical theology, conscientization is related to the notion of prob-
lematisation whereby nothing is ‘taken as read’ by an enquirer and an
awareness of the systemic and ideological forces at play in a context is
acquired. The pastoral cycle’s politically informed and practice-based
approach offered transformative potential. It helped me surface some of
the deep and dark socio-historical underpinnings of systems of modern
mass incarceration which provides the context within which indeterminate
sentences have been formulated and enforced with detrimental effect (see
Part I). At a personal and vocational level, it has left me disturbed by the
State-sanctioned injustices I discovered in my enquiry.
Although other terms may be used (e.g. Browning 1991; Osmer 2008),
the pastoral cycle basically consists of context, theory, reflection and back to
context via practice. Each of the four elements of the cycle are phases with
a particular interrogative focus but they are best not approached as inde-
pendent stages to the exclusion of the other three foci. Aspects of the
other elements are always present in each phase of the cycle but one is
cognitively privileged momentarily in the dynamic. The adapted cycle I
have designed and used in my enquiry consists of the Define, Describe,
Reflect and Act phases (see Fig. 1.1). This will provide the framework for
the four parts that constitute this book.
The pastoral cycle is not without its critics (Lartey 2000; Ward 2017)
but was a valuable tool that offered me a heuristic process for undertaking
this enquiry. It was especially helpful in cognitively unpicking an appropri-
ate pastoral issue from the overwhelming experiential ravel that I was con-
fronted with at the time of entering prison ministry (Ballard and Pritchard
2006, 87). The Definition and Description stages also helped me develop
a political attentiveness around the IPP issue that kept me honest about
what my enquiry could achieve and helped me avoid generating false hope
amongst the men that participated in my enquiry.
Beyond its usefulness in the initial exploratory stages of research, the
cycle also provided me with means by which to maintain focus and com-
mitment over the long haul of fieldwork, interview analysis and beyond.
6 D. K. BEEDON
Fig. 1.1 The pastoral

cycle (Adapted—
author’s design)
Whilst the pastoral cycle is a reflective cycle, it is not circular, but inten-
tionally iterative, deepening the practitioner’s understanding and inform-
ing their praxis with each cycle. In the Define phase of the cycle, I used my
journaling to reflect upon a number of issues that were worthy of my
pastoral attention. The tragic death in custody I have referred to at the
beginning of this chapter brought a brutal clarity concerning a press-
ing need.
Situations such as this have great psycho-emotional weight to them.
There is a deeper psychological affect in the sense of a change in mood and
perception (Feldman Barrett and Bliss-Moreau 2009). The affect of the
death in custody I encountered pastorally was defining for my reflections
and I knew this was an avenue of enquiry whose worth could carry me
through the inevitable moments of deep fatigue and self-doubt I would
face on the long road of description, reflection and action. I was also aware
there could be dangers to undertaking such a study motivated by a tragedy
that had personally affected me. I found further encouragement soon after
this epiphany from the political theologian Anna Rowlands. In an address
she gave at the 2016 British and Irish Association of Practical Theologians’
Annual Conference she suggested theological enquirers who wish to
transform the world need a passion for their area of interest so as to be
thoroughly dedicated to the important work of responsible enquiry in the
field of practical theology.
I was confident I had such a passion and a heuristic overarching

approach to keep me focused. But I also needed to find methods to help
me describe the detrimental factors impacting on those serving an IPP
sentence, reflect upon the pastoral consequences of these contextual fac-
tors and formulate how to act in a more pastorally responsible way.
Methods in Practical Theology

The pastoral cycle provided me with procedural clarity in the challenges of
a context-based and practice-focused enquiry conducted within my work-
place. But it did not provide specific methods for defining, describing,
reflecting or acting. Underlying the matter of choosing methods to employ
were more fundamental questions. As practical theologian Zoë Bennett
et al observe, the choice of methods of enquiry is “…not simply a matter
of choosing the best tools for the job…beliefs about existence (ontology)
predicate which ways of knowing are judged valid (epistemology)” and
these factors inform the methodology (approach and design) that will
construct the picture of the world we paint (2018, 26).
Elaine Graham, Heather Walton and Frances Ward in their Theological
Reflection: Methods (hereafter TR:M) suggest a sevenfold typology of
methods in theological reflection that can be found in approaches to prac-
tical theology (2005). Two (Corporate Theological Reflection and Local
Theologies) are not represented in my pastoral enquiry as they are
approaches specific to communities of faith and the interviewees I worked
with were not a homogenous faith group. The other five types are present
in a variety of forms and consist of: (1) The Living Human Document; (2)
Constructive Narrative Theology; (3) Canonical Narrative Theology; (4)
Correlation; and (5) Praxis. Using Graham, Walton and Ward’s frame-
work I will map across the categories that elements of my pastoral enquiry
fall into so as to give the reader an introductory sense of the theological
ground this book will be covering and how it will be explored.
The Living Human Document

TR:M refers to this as “theology by heart”. Human being-in-relationship
stands at the centre of this theological approach to reflection. Charles
Gerkin, an early proponent of practical theology, first coined the phrase
“the living human document” (1984). This was part of a turn to the
8 D. K. BEEDON
human subject in theology, in contrast to the abstract and systematic forms

the field had often previously taken (see Chap. 7). At the heart of my pas-
toral enquiry is the flesh and blood lived reality of the seventeen interview-
ees serving an indeterminate sentence and also autoethnographic
reflections of my own pastoral presence in this enquiry (Chaps. 4 and 5).
Employing a Life-History Interviewing approach kept me close to the ‘liv-
ing human documents’ who are the subjects of this enquiry. It is the theo-
logical reading of these lives with practical intent that helps me formulate
a pastoral response to their plight (Chaps. 7 and 8).
Constructive Narrative Theology

TR:M describes this as “speaking in parables”. This approach to theologi-
cal reflection recognises the interplay between scriptural parabolic narra-
tives and life-histories. In Chap. 6, where I theologically explore ‘humanity’
and ‘hope’, Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son features. As a story that
juxtaposes wilfulness and loss with forgiveness and mercy, it is a parable
that speaks powerfully into the lives of many incarcerated souls, some of
whom readily embrace it as a narrative faith guide (Beedon 2016b). In the
chapel of the prison where I ministered a large print of Rembrandt’s
famous representation of the story dominated visually. The parable also
provided me with a robust model of humane regard that underpins the
paradoxical ‘custodial compassion’ that I offer as a pastoral response to
modern mass incarceration generally and indeterminate sentencing par-
ticularly (Chap. 8).
Canonical Narrative Theology

For the authors of TR:M this consists of “telling God’s stories”. They
warn of the dangers of this approach that arise from sometimes being
unhealthily motivated by a conservative Christian reaction to what some
perceive to be a postmodern malaise. Accordingly, they argue, there can
be an authoritarian tone assumed by some canonical narrative theologians.
This tone is in the wrong dialogical register to engage adequately with
many societies and communities that are seeking less traditional sources
for authentic living. Where the ‘telling’ is in an authoritative tone it is less
likely to be heard. They suggest it is in the living out and the becoming of
the story of God that the content and the import of that narrative is best
communicated.
In Chap. 7, I have chosen ‘the Good Shepherd’ as a narrative theme

around which to formulate a broad and inclusive definition of pastoral
care. The narrative motif of ‘shepherd’ spans both the Old and New
Testaments. The imagery it contains simply and beautifully communicates
the nature of God’s love. Whilst we might be rightfully suspicious of meta-
narratives, the overarching narrative arc of scripture as read through
Christian eyes is of God’s profound loving intent towards humankind and
the world divinely created as their home. This profound loving intent,
encapsulated in the metaphor of the ‘the Good Shepherd’, is most power-
fully embodied in the incarnation of that love in Jesus Christ. The practice
of that loving intent is central to the model of pastoral care I offer in
this book.
Correlation
In TR:M, this involves “speaking of God in public”. The correlational
method is central to this pastoral enquiry which draws context-relevant
secular thought into critical conversation with my faith-shaped anthropol-
ogy as it applies to the IPP predicament and wider issues of modern mass
incarceration. The theoria (theoretical or contemplative knowledge) at
play here is not concerned with grand theological narratives abstracted
from lived experience and speaking in terms incomprehensible to most
penal practitioners. What I am undertaking puts my understanding of
God-in-relation-to-humankind in the service of those trapped in humanity-
diminishing deferred hope. It is a theology primarily concerned with phro-
nesis (practical wisdom) of a pastoral form and a praxis (see Chap. 4) that
embodies humanising transformation (Part IV). This is because “talk
about God cannot take place independent of a commitment to a struggle
for human emancipation” (2005, 170, for a discussion of ‘theoria’ in rela-
tion to ‘phronesis’ see Bass et al. 2016).
The critical correlation method sits in an epistemological tension.
Somewhat caricaturing, the dangers inherent to this tension are that the
liberal side of the equation baptises culture and secular wisdom too uncrit-
ically. Alternatively, the conservative side, utilising an individualistic
anthropology, apolitically accepts dehumanising practices whilst focusing
on personal salvation. Throughout Parts 1 and 2 I rely heavily on secular
thought as I engage in sociological, penological and criminological
10 D. K. BEEDON
matters. But this is done in the service of formulating a pastoral response

that is grounded in the reality of modern mass incarceration and not some
abstracted and idealised theological reflection. Critically correlated secular
thought adds granularity to a subject such as State-sanctioned incarcera-
tion that theology alone could only approach superficially or reflect upon
in an abstract fashion. Critical appropriation of non-theological thinking
can allow for a “thick description” of the context the pastoral enquirer is
seeking to theologically reflect upon (for more on “thick description” see
Geertz 1993).
Praxis
According to TR:M, praxis is “theology-in-action”. The theology under-
pinning this pastoral enquiry is not concerned with observing an abstracted
orthodoxy for “the truth is truth only when it serves as the basis for truly
human attitudes” (Segundo 1976, 32). The practical theology operative
here is a faith-informed mode of discourse that seeks “to witness to the
truth in a world of fragments” through orthopraxis (Forrester 2005, 11).
Whilst the ecclesia and its practices tend to be the prime domain of enquiry
for practical theology, the context of my enquiry is found at the border-
lands of civil society amongst a vulnerable group of men with a high risk
of self-harm or suicide. My concern is a pastoral one, so I employ theology
in the service of the humanising of incarceration in the contextual particu-
larity of a hope-diminishing form of sentencing.
I am not arguing against more theoretical forms of theology as I am
aware, in drawing out notions of imago Dei and ‘community-in-being’
(Chap. 2) from heritages of theological insight, I am appropriately reliant
upon such theoria. But, as a pastoral endeavour, my operative theology is
a diaconal one employed in the service of those whose humanity is being
diminished. It is addressed to a realm of discourse that may lack theologi-
cal literacy but can be receptive to rehabilitative practices.
Anonymisation
A final point I wish to make is concerning anonymisation. Most pastoral
care is confidential in nature due to the personal and private information
often being shared by the person seeking support. It should be no surprise
therefore to the reader that an enquiry into pastoral care for a group of
people, consisting of some who have pre-existing vulnerabilities, should

need to be highly confidential concerning what is published. From the
outset I made it clear that whatever the men shared in interview or group
work would be treated as confidential and this was reiterated at every stage
of my enquiry. The only explicit qualification I made to this was if they
shared something with me that made me believe there was a risk of harm
to themselves or others (staff or residents).
As indeterminately sentenced people in custody have a heightened risk
of self-harm or suicide this was a pastoral responsibility that I could not
abdicate for the sake of confidentiality. There was only one occasion in all
my fieldwork that I had need to approach the prison’s Safer Custody Team
to visit an interviewee to check in on his mental state as he appeared
extremely flat in mood during interview. Although I had a professional
safer custody role it was important that I did not blur the role boundaries
of pastor and pastoral enquirer at that point. A member of the Safer
Custody Team visited the person and came away assured that it was just a
passing ‘low’—which it was thankfully.
In both interviews and group work, I was amazed and humbled by how
candid those participating would be with me. One-to-one they shared
some of the darkest and regret-filled moments of their lives, their heart-
aches and those moments when they had been brought to the lowest
depths of despair by their sentence. I promised to share those stories and
they wanted them told. But then arises the issue of confidentiality. I have
been careful in the writing of this book to redact information that might
identify individuals or locations. The issue that I have wrestled with long
and hard is how I anonymise the information so no detail can be attrib-
uted to a particular person.
Throughout my fieldwork when I was conducting group work and
interviews, I was having to bring information in and out of the prison
where I worked. This was because my studies were part-time and much
processing of the information took place at home in an evening or over the
weekend. Academic and prison regulations required that this information
was anonymised and treated as strictly confidential. I chose to use identi-
fiers such as ID30 (IPP interviewee) and IDS02 (staff interviewee) along-
side any demographic information and for interview and group transcripts.
The key list matching names and identifiers was never with any other
material and was held in a password-protected computer file.
When I came to writing up the findings of my pastoral enquiry, I found
myself in a quandary. A fundamental premise of the model of pastoral care
12 D. K. BEEDON
I propose is that of humane relationship-based regard. I was conscious

that continuing to refer to the interviewees by the identifiers I had used in
fieldwork could seem to depersonalise and thereby dehumanise them. It
could seem as if I was treating them as subjects of study rather than human
beings whose lived experiences were bravely shared with me. I know in
other similar research names are changed, but I found the thought of this
psycho-emotionally difficult for me personally. That is because the stories
that were entrusted to me I carry with me still, years after the interviews
were completed. The identifiers (e.g. ID02) have deep associations with
individual lives for me. I therefore believe that to take the option, as other
similar research has, to change the names to false ones, in my case still
depersonalises and feels even more like a betrayal of that individual’s per-
sonhood. So I will continue with the identifiers to differentiate the
information.
One final note on this: I was also tempted to provide some detail
regarding matters such as sentence length given (minimum tariff) and
how far over tariff for each of the Found Poems that ‘bookend’ each chap-
ter. These poems are a textual representation of an interviewed life using
phrases and sentences used by those men serving an IPP sentence who
participated in this enquiry (see Chap. 4 for more on this poetic form of
representation). I have decided against providing information that was not
shared in interview as there are dangers it could undermine the anonymi-
sation of the material. I fear that the more personal and penal information
I provide the greater the chance of undermining anonymity. There are a
few occasions where I provide more background information to individual
accounts but only where it serves the purposes of my humanising intent.
Summary
Practical theology provided the means by which I could undertake this
pastoral enquiry. It encouraged me to pay attention to the lived experi-
ences and life histories of those I pastorally wished to serve. It got me to
take seriously the scriptural narrative sources that spoke into those lives. A
theologically practical approach forced me to re-examine what my under-
standing of God-in-Christ could equip me to be compassionately present
in carceral space. It provided a means by which I could engage in a critical
dialogue with appropriate areas of secular wisdom to more accurately
determine the landscape of modern mass incarceration, as well as the
specific texture of indeterminately sentenced lives. Finally, this approach

kept me true to my practical focus of humanising incarceration in the par-
ticularity of generating and maintaining hope with those dwelling in the
shadow of despair.
At this point, I am aware of the danger of claiming too much for my
small-scale enquiry that features only seventeen incarcerated interviewees
(and six staff). Generalisation is always an issue for ethnographic enquiry.
In the life-themes I identify in Chap. 5, it should not be inferred that these
biographical and behavioural elements are true for all the interviewees and
can be applied to all indeterminately sentenced people. That would be an
untrue and ludicrous claim. Personal information was shared by a number
of interviewees concerning chaotic and/or violent childhoods which are
reflected in their self-descriptions captured in a number of the Found
Poems. But this is not the case for all interviewees and a number spoke
warmly of their upbringing and families. All interviewees received a copy
of their interview transcript so they could be reminded of what they dis-
closed to me on the understanding their interview material could be
removed from this enquiry. No one opted to do so. I also shared my find-
ings with a leading UK criminologist and a couple of people who had been
Probation Officers (with many combined years of experience working
with people on IPP sentences) who concurred with my findings. Whilst
not true for every IPP person everywhere, the life-themes I have identified
are significant and present enough in the narratives shared with me to war-
rant pastoral attention.
The following eight chapters will take us on a journey of enquiry in
response to the ‘Come with me’ invitation I offered at the opening of this
chapter. In Part I, I will define the issue I seek to address pastorally. Part II
will describe the specific context within which that issue sits. Part III will
be a reflection on pastoral practice in carceral spaces and Part IV will offer
principles and practices that I have formulated out of my enquiry to guide
penal pastoral action.
14 D. K. BEEDON
Fig. 1.2 Life as a Film movie style poster—ID17
Found Poem: The Illusion of Time (ID17)

to shoot somebody
was a normal thing
trapped in an environment
like I come from
all negative around
extreme violence
being given towards [my] mum
didn’t have a father
didn’t have nobody

to tell me not to do this or…that
don’t have time to yourself
to take a step back
caught up
in the illusion of time
just going and going and going
everything is too fast
gun fire; me holding a gun
judge hitting the hammer down
horrible sentence
nightmare
had an impact on us
I was scared
I’ve felt suicidal
my grand.mother’s in bits
I started understanding
why I’m here
product of the environment
how strange it was
got this overwhelming feeling
I’ve never felt before
an acknowledgement
I’m loved outside
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PART I
Defining the Issue

CHAPTER 2
Modern Mass Incarceration: Can it

Be Humanised?
We carry within us the power to bless and to redeem…We were the

people who designed and created these places of punishment. We can
reimagine them into becoming places of promise and possibility.
—Sehested (2019, 167)
Introduction
The Pastoral Cycle, as described in the previous chapter, begins with the
defining of an issue that is to be theologically reflected upon with the
intention of informing pastoral practice. As a prison chaplain, the most
pressing issue I experienced, almost from my first day ministering behind
bars, was the scale of the dehumanisation—both deliberate and acciden-
tal—that was present in the penal system. In a sermon in 1991 American
social activist and Baptist Minister Howard Moody accurately described
mass incarceration as institutionalising hopelessness and prisons being
“charnel-houses of human degradation, guaranteed to turn out bitter and
resentful citizens” (quoted in Sehested 2019, 126f.). This is not to say all
carceral space is devoid of humanising acts of kindness and compassion.
However, whether it be the built prison environment or the daily dimin-
ishment of human agency, there is a brutality to prison life that is pro-
foundly unconducive to human flourishing.
Human flourishing is one of the foci of the theological sub-discipline
known as practical theology. This theological approach problematises the
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 21

Switzerland AG 2022
D. K. Beedon, Pastoral Care for the Incarcerated,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13272-8_2
22 D. K. BEEDON
political systems and social structures that encourage or inhibit the occur-
rence of human flourishing (Pattison 1997; Couture 2012). In my explo-
ration of penal pastoral practice, I approached the subject using practical
theology’s problematising lens. This way of reading a pastoral context
takes nothing for granted when it comes to socially constructed systems
such as modern mass incarceration. In practical theology, there has been a
turn away from the individualistic pastoral model constructed by a “thera-
peutic captivity” which understood care predominantly in personal and
psycho-emotional terms (Pattison 1997, 209ff.). Whilst the individual
remains central, contemporary approaches in practical theology under-
stand people in more innovative and complex ways (Miller-McLemore
2012, 96). This includes taking pastoral account of their location in socio-
economic systems shaped by history.
The rationale for this chapter is to socio-historically locate the context
within which prison-based pastoral care is offered. It is true to say that
most inhabitants of modern prisons would not be aware of the penological
inheritance their lives are held captive within. Nor would they necessarily
be interested in a history lesson about prisons. However, for penal pastoral
practitioners, an appreciation of the historically shaped systemic forces that
frequently diminish those in their care can inform liberative practices. As
liberation theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez has noted, humanising theologi-
cal regard pays attention to questions and facts derived from the world and
its history (1973, 12).
The systems of incarceration that largely hinder human flourishing are
the continued outworking of an often-dark social history which needs to
be critically reflected upon. During my ministry behind bars, I increasingly
became aware of the importance of being cognisant of the historical back-
ground that has shaped and continues to constrain much penal practice.
In England and Wales there is a physical reminder of this history. Over
one-quarter of all people in custody are held in prisons (32 of them) built
in the Victorian era (1837–1901). Whilst facilities have been updated the
architecture and aesthetic of these places remain unchanged and shaped by
penal thinking from over a century ago.
During my time as a chaplain I was constantly asking myself: “Is it pos-
sible to humanise mass imprisonment so prisons become places where
human flourishing is increasingly possible?” I remain largely sceptical that
prisons can become such places without a radical rethink about their pur-
pose and design. I warm to criminologist Alison Liebling’s view that
“sometimes, or under certain conditions” human flourishing is possible
2 MODERN MASS INCARCERATION: CAN IT BE HUMANISED? 23
behind bars, but “it is not common” (Liebling 2012, 1, original empha-
sis). Much of the humanisation that chaplaincy departments offer within
prisons is in daily face-to-face pastoral encounters with residents and staff.
This is invaluable work. However, what I discovered through the Gallup
CliftonStrengths™ personality type assessment is that, temperamentally, I
am a systems thinker (Clifton and Rath 2007). This inclined me to want
to offer more in the field of pastoral care than just daily first aid. I won-
dered where I could apply my thinking to impact the practices and policies
of the wider system within which I worked. This refining and defining of
an issue upon which to reflect required that I spent some time deepening
my understanding of the system I was located within—including its his-
tory. As a practical theologian this was part of the locating of myself and
my pastoral practice in the socio-historically constructed system of mass
incarceration.
Before becoming a prison chaplain, during my time in parochial minis-
try I served in socio-economically diverse parishes, from ‘wealthy’ through
to ‘deprived’ areas. I learned that key to offering effective pastoral care in
any setting is being well-informed about the context ministry is taking
place within. Social history can be helpful in deepening an appreciation of
what a place and its people have been through over time and how these
factors shape, often deform, people’s lives. One parish I served in had
enjoyed prosperity and full employment following the British nineteenth-
century industrial revolution but in the 1980s slumped into post-industrial
decline with concomitant socio-economic trauma. The social psyche of
the place was deeply affected by this event and its aftershock. A pastoral
sensitivity to this socio-historically shaped context required an awareness
of these factors.
Many years ago, as an undergraduate in theology, I was introduced to
Karl Marx’s notion of ‘reification’ through my study of writers in libera-
tion theology. Reification is the social phenomenon whereby groups for-
get that much of the social world around them was itself socially
constructed. Res is Latin for ‘thing’, so reification means ‘thing-making’.
Human beings make a social system into a ‘thing’ and then accept it as a
given, forgetting it was made by them in the first place. By implication, if
socially constructed, any social system can be deconstructed and reimag-
ined in a different way. For example, western economists often talk about
‘capitalism’ as if it is the only way national finance and global trade can and
should be organised. They thereby imply that as a system of economics it
24 D. K. BEEDON
simply is the way things are even though some of the system’s out-workings
are unjust. Capitalism has been reified.
Similarly, mass incarceration has been reified. It is often presented in
political discourse as something to be accepted as a given. But is it? As
Nancy Hastings Sehested’s words at the head of this chapter suggest, we
have socially constructed these carceral systems so we can also reimagine
them. What is stopping us other than a lack of courage and imagination?
We will need to inform our imagination if we are to avoid daydreaming
about a superficial response to crime and design a more humane penal
system than that provided by mass incarceration. Such discerning imagina-
tion is also the basis of good pastoral practice. Transformative action is
rooted in the reality of what is and the hope of what could be. This chap-
ter, on the emergence of modern mass incarceration as a response to
crime, is a pastoral contextualisation. In effect, it is a socio-historically
informed pastoral orientation to the penal parish.
The Purpose of Incarceration: A Swinging Pendulum

What is the point of locking people up? This is such a basic question for a
civilised society to ask but one, I fear, is rarely asked in everyday conversa-
tion. It is almost as if there is a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ unspoken social
contract around modern mass incarceration. As long as we feel our streets
are safe, surely prison must be working, right? As Winston Churchill once
pointed out to the British parliament: “The mood and temper of the pub-
lic in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most
unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country” (1910). If, as a society, we
are careless about what happens behind the thousands of miles of high
walls and razor wire that hold captive millions of our citizens, what might
that say about us collectively? Why are they there and what are we doing
with and to them?
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, imprisonment for a criminal
offence aims to serve four social purposes (Bernard 2021):
1. Retribution: Wrongdoing should be punished according to the

nature and scale of the crime. There is a denunciatory element to
this as the punishment serves to declare social opprobrium.
2. Incapacitation: Wrongdoers should surrender their liberty for the
sake of public safety. This is especially true in the case of serious
violent or sexual offenders.
3. Deterrence: Sentences should have enough punitive weight to deter

re-offending or other would-be offenders.
4. Rehabilitation: Prisons should provide the context within which
offenders are given adequate opportunities to reform.
Models of imprisonment have varied down the centuries and have dis-
played different degrees of balance between the four penal elements
(Wilson 2014). What has been counted as a crime and warranted impris-
onment has varied to some extent as crime is a social construct. This is
suggested by the fact that many crimes are not considered such by all
societies, nor for all time (e.g. the changing laws regarding homosexual
acts in the UK and the legislation regarding slave ownership and segrega-
tion in the US). Criminal justice—how crime is punished—is also socially
determined (Zalman 1977; Garland and Sparks 2000; Garside 2008;
McNeill 2014). Acknowledgement of the social and historical factors
influencing criminological and penological theories invites a de-reifying
approach to the subject that is often lacking in political policy and public
discourse (Henry 2009). The same could be said of much pastoral practice
in prisons.
As socially negotiated constructs, modern forms of incarceration are
not incontestable givens to be accepted uncritically. There is a “historical
specificity of imprisonment” (Hudson 1987, 36). Therefore prisons, as a
form of punishment, should be open to critique and problematisation.
This is a role that the church and theology have played, since the inception
of the modern prison, by bringing a Christian humanitarian perspective to
bear upon the privations and distress frequently endured within carceral
space and the penal policy that shapes it. Christians from various traditions
were early key reformers of prison life, for example, John Howard
(Calvinist, England), Elizabeth Fry (Quaker, England), Louis Dwight
(Congregationalist, US) and Dorothea Dix (Methodist, US). As theolo-
gian Chris Wood has observed, there is a radical critique of the notion of
punishment at the heart of the Christian tradition (1991, 72).
So how did we get to this point, where millions of lives are blighted by
incarceration? A situation where large sections of advanced western societ-
ies seem to be on a lifelong conveyor belt to prison and trapped in a
revolving door of reoffending on release?
26 D. K. BEEDON
Incarceration: Modern and Mass

The forms of state-sanctioned incarceration currently found in the US and
Great Britain are both modern and mass. They are modern in the sense
that prisons—architecturally and institutionally—are products of
Enlightenment thinking. Cesare Beccaria’s eighteenth-century pamphlet
On Crimes and Punishment was the first penological text and greatly
informed political thinking around punitive responses to crime on both
sides of the Atlantic (1785). Yet crime did not emerge as a phenomenon
in the eighteenth century. As the scriptures of ancient religious traditions
bear witness, throughout human history, the transgression of laws and
customs seems just as much part of human nature as is conformity to
agreed or enforced social practices. What the Enlightenment brought was
the application of reason to what had previously been the rather capricious
punishment of wrongdoing. As Foucault has narrated, pre-modern forms
of punishment were, to contemporary mores, barbaric and summary,
involving public and extreme forms of corporal and capital punish-
ment (1977).
With the Enlightenment came the Industrial Revolution and the mass
movement of labour from rural into urban areas. The first half of the nine-
teenth century saw the population of London double and that of New York
increase almost ten-fold. With this concentration of exploited humanity
came a perceived increase in criminal behaviour, which required a solution
to criminality on a larger scale than had previously been the case. In Great
Britain, other than crimes warranting capital punishment, transportation
had been a major penological means of dealing with serious crime since
the seventeenth century. Shipment of those convicted of crimes to North
America was suspended during the American Revolutionary War and sub-
sequently ceased following the loss of those territories. A penal colony was
established by the British in New South Wales (Australia) in the late eigh-
teenth century, but crime rates continued to rise and transportation was
increasingly judged to be ineffective and inhumane. The last prison ship
arrived in Western Australia in 1868.
One of the earliest architectural examples of a prison designed for large-
scale modern incarceration was the panopticon (“all seeing”) (Wilson
2014, 30ff.). The design was conceived by the British utilitarian philoso-
pher Jeremy Bentham as a means by which the maximum number of
inmates could be supervised by the minimum number of staff. Whilst
inmates would be aware surveillance was constantly taking place, it would
be done covertly, thereby leaving them unsure of who would be being

watched at any given moment. Although never built in its pure form dur-
ing Bentham’s lifetime the panopticon influenced prison design in the first
half of the nineteenth century, beginning with what became known as
Millbank Prison in London (opened 1821). As late as 1925, Stateville
Correctional Centre in Illinois was opened featuring a panopticon-style
roundhouse (F-House). Although no longer in use, F-House remains
standing as a historic monument. Albeit in a less high-tech form, this “all
seeing” design prefigures the intersection of covert surveillance and mass
incarceration that will become a central institutional feature of present-day
prison design and operation (Stoddart 2020).
A House of Penance: The Penitentiary

The notion of an “all seeing” presence embodied in the design of the pan-
opticon has echoes of the religious belief concerning God’s omniscience—
the divine ability to see and know all things. The surveilling guard,
described by Bentham as ‘the inspector’, is hidden as much as possible so
his vantage point at any time is unknown—who or what he is observing
cannot be ascertained by inmates. As philosopher and psychoanalyst Miran
Božovič has noted, the inspector is regarded as having divine attributes,
“being omnipresent, he is also all seeing, omniscient and omnipotent”
(1995, 91). The religious overtones contained within the role of ‘the
inspector’ is no accident. In 1779 the Penitentiary Act was passed in
England which harnessed the Quaker and monastic practice of silent soli-
tude as a basis for reflection leading to repentance (Potter 1999, 100–101).
The design of penal space that emerged from Enlightenment thinking was
penitential in form. ‘Cells’ were an idea imported from monastic life, a
space within which a monk or nun would ponder their life in relation to
God’s gaze and judgement. Prisons were to be houses of
penance—penitentiaries.
Initially, silence and solitude were key features of early-modern prisons.
In the late eighteenth-century New York, Virginia and Kentucky authori-
ties built their first penitentiaries following the separate (or solitary) con-
finement model. This was known as the Pennsylvanian system whereby the
incarcerated remained in solitary confinement to ponder their misdeeds
whilst isolated from the harmful influence of other wrongdoers (Musick
and Gunsaulus-Musick 2017, 9). The separate system became popular
across Europe but began to be increasingly criticised in the US for its high
28 D. K. BEEDON
staff costs and the detrimental effects on the mental health of those in
custody. Although envisaged with humane intent, based on a belief in a
reforming holy encounter with God, in practice it often “inspired madness
more than rectitude” (Dubler 2013, 269).
Whilst initially following the Pennsylvanian model, during the 1820s
Auburn Prison in New York State implemented a modified regime. This
continued to maintain strict silence, reinforced by ‘lockstep’ when groups
of prisoners were marched around the establishment. But it was a ‘congre-
gate’ system in putting incarcerated men to work in workshops under the
auspicious of their labour being character-building. Outside of the means
of production men remained in solitary conditions. Although overcrowd-
ing eventually led to the abandonment of prison-wide solitary conditions
(other than as special punishment), the Auburn system remains the stan-
dard penological paradigm for American incarceration up to the present
day. According to Leonard Roberts’ history of rehabilitation, it signalled
the triumph of a ‘Puritan attitude to criminal behaviour’ constructed on a
theological anthropology, whereby human deviancy was to be corrected
by discipline. The Quaker (Pennsylvanian) model of providing a penal
environment within which the grace of God—“the Inner Light”—could
transform lives was largely abandoned (1985, 108).
Auburn was the first penal institution to profit from prison labour. This
marks the beginning of a major trend in mass incarceration in the US: the
industrialisation of carceral space.
The Industrialisation of Carceral Space

In the US, slavery and involuntary servitude were abolished by the
Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1865). An exception was
made when servitude was used as “punishment for crime whereof the
party shall have been duly convicted”. In state and federal prisons all incar-
cerated people are required to work unless deemed medically unfit.
According to the Washington Post around 63,000 incarcerated people
work in US prison industries, which is almost 50% of the prison popula-
tion (Dreier 2020). Prison industries programmes operate across over
forty states (Musick and Gunsaulus-Musick 2017, 79). According to fig-
ures released in 2019, almost 12,500 people in custody in England and
Wales work in prison-based industries—15% of the prison population.
This incarcerated workforce laboured for 17 million hours in 2017–2018
(Prison Reform Trust 2019, 14). The industrialisation of incarceration,
whereby the prison population is engaged as a pool of labour for the pro-
duction of goods or services, is not as advanced in the UK as found
in the US.
Goods and services provided by prison industries are often for the
internal market of incarceration—e.g. manufacturing of beds and lockers;
prison clothing; and printing and binding services. Others are provided to
the external markets, such as fast-food chains’ corporate uniforms; designer
lingerie; military equipment; and call-centre staffing. On both sides of the
Atlantic remuneration for incarcerated labour is deliberately low. Some
funding for victim compensation is generated through prison industries.
Advocates of prison-based industries point to the rehabilitative benefits of
meaningful work and the acquiring of employment skills. Proponents of
prison-industries also argue that the revenue generated by prison labour
can be re-invested to offset the cost of incarceration to the taxpayer. Critics
raise concerns over fair economic competition in the free market when
prison labour is so cheap. Others point to the unhealthy interrelationship
that exists between government and prison industry companies, raising an
ethical concern about profiteering from the misery of mass incarceration.
Some describe this relationship as a ‘prison-industrial complex’ that has
resulted in the increase of incarceration rates thereby, accidentally or delib-
erately, swelling the incarcerated cheap labour market (Schlosser 1998).
In the late twentieth century, privatisation was introduced into mass
incarceration on both sides of the Atlantic. Privatisation in a penal context
can involve one or a combination of three elements:
1. The management of prison establishments

2. The building and leasing out of prisons
3. The for-profit provision of services (e.g. healthcare or facilities
maintenance)
The privatisation of some prison provision has added to the discomfort

of those uneasy about profit-making from mass incarceration (Prison
Reform Trust 2005). Although at the time of writing (2020) President
Biden had put the renewal of contracts with private prisons on hold, over
8% of the US prison population were housed in for-profit places of incar-
ceration (approximately 116,000 people). Only 14 out of 117 prisons
across England and Wales are privatised but they house 15% of the prison
population, almost twice the proportion in private correctional facilities
in the US.
30 D. K. BEEDON
The making of money from the punishment of crime is nothing new. As

the nineteenth-century novels of Charles Dickens bear witness, debtors’
prisons such as at Newgate in London were privately administered and
administrators and gaolers alike profited from various economic practices
which often left residents in worse debt and with lessening prospects of
release (Wilson 2014, 24ff.). Seventeenth-century English colonists to the
New World profited from the transportation and sale of convicted people
into servitude (Musick and Gunsaulus-Musick 2017, 19). The concern is
that whilst profiteering in the past might have been a by-product of incar-
ceration, sometimes by illegitimate means, nowadays it has become woven
into the fabric of mass incarceration.
Incarceration is increasingly becoming an industry whose business plan
is the same as anywhere else: minimise costs and maximise profits. Unlike
many other industries the labour force does not have the choice to seek
alternative employment or higher wages. This is the neo-liberal capitalist
dream. Adding and related to this concern is the ever-burgeoning captive
labour pool that has swollen places of incarceration to overcrowding on
both sides of the Atlantic.
Prison Growth: The Race to Incarcerate

In a briefing to the House of Commons of the UK Parliament in 2018, it
was noted that the prison population quadrupled between 1900 and
2018 in England and Wales (Sturge 2018, 3). A defensive response might
be to point out that the general population has also grown in over a cen-
tury so, of course, the number of convicted citizens will have risen. There
is some truth in this, but it is not the whole truth. Incarceration rates are
often quoted in terms of ‘per 100,000’ of the general population. At the
start of the twentieth century, 86 people per 100,000 of the population in
England and Wales were being imprisoned. By the start of this century,
that figure had risen to 172. The prison population even declined in the
early part of the last century but saw a significant upturn post-World War
II, which then accelerated dramatically from the 1990s. Mainland UK has
the highest incarceration rates of its closest European neighbours.
The incarceration rates in the US have followed a similar trajectory. It
has recently been noted that the 2019 figures were the lowest since 1995,
but this still represents a shocking 810 per 100,000 incarceration rates
(Gramlich 2021). The twentieth century witnessed what some have
described as a “prison-building binge” across the US (Musick and
Gunsaulus-Musick 2017, 22ff.). This was in response to what prison

reformer Marc Mauer calls “the race to incarcerate” (2006). This was fos-
tered by an ideological competition, shared by both political left and right,
to be tough on crime. In 2006 half the operational US prisons had been
built in only the previous twenty years so as to accommodate this bur-
geoning pool of suspended lives (Mauer 2006, 10).
There are those who argue that the incapacitation and deterrent effects
of imprisonment reduce crime. However, a literature review in 2014 sug-
gested that there was only a small reduction in crime brought about by
increased rates of incarceration (Travis et al. 2014, 155). The review also
pointed out that there was evidence that as the rate increases its deterrent
effect decreases significantly. In the UK, the National Audit Office simi-
larly failed to find a demonstrable link between the size of the prison pop-
ulation and crime rates (National Audit Office 2012). This is a contested
area where ideological positions will, to some degree, determine evidence
offered against or for increased mass incarceration as a solution to crime.
Given there is not a substantial enough political consensus on this matter,
I believe we should have, as democratic societies, acted with greater cau-
tion rather than having responded to crime in a disproportionate, damag-
ing and expensive way.
This book is dedicated to the humanising of incarceration and I believe
there are serious moral questions that are raised by practices of mass
imprisonment. Alongside these concerns are also issues to do with the
pragmatics of costs to the public purse from large-scale imprisonment. A
place in one of Her Majesty’s prisons costs approximately £45,000 [cur-
rently $62,000] per year (Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service
2020a). According to the US Justice Department, the per capita cost in
federal prisons is almost $38,000 [currently £27,500] (Prisons Bureau
2019). Whether this is a like-for-like comparison is unclear, but the bud-
getary scale of national expenditure on incarceration is enormous on both
sides of the Atlantic. With current prison populations of around 2,000,000
(US) and 83,000 (England and Wales) the drain on the public purse—
drawing funding away from healthcare, social welfare and education—
borders on immoral. This all bears witness to an entrenched ideological
mindset that privileges “social defence” over “social investment” (Mauer
2006, 54).
Given that recidivism rates remain high in both the UK and the US,
those convicted of and imprisoned for crimes are not consistently deterred
by increased chances of incarceration. In England and Wales, almost half
32 D. K. BEEDON
of the adults released from custody (48%) are reconvicted of another

offence within a year (Prison Reform Trust 2021, 3). According to the
Harvard Political Review, two out of three people released from custody
in the US will reoffend within three years (Benecchi 2021). Not only has
the prison population expanded dramatically within the last half-century,
recently the average length of sentence has also increased. Not only are
more people going to prison, but they also do so for longer periods. This
has created penal systems that have increasingly shifted in their ‘core busi-
ness’ from rehabilitation, then to correction and finally, due to sheer num-
bers, human warehousing (Dubler 2013, 311).
Over thirty years ago, David Waddington, the then Conservative Home
Secretary in the UK, described prisons as “an expensive way of making bad
people worse” (cited in Grimwood and Berman 2012, 2). These ware-
houses of human misery are expensive. Their residents often re-enter their
communities angrier, more violent, traumatised and drug-dependent from
incarceration. This would be concerning enough but the fact that this life-
diminishing experience is disproportionately doled out to black men
should be downright disturbing.
Race
More than a decade ago, the civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander pro-
vocatively described the US process of mass incarceration as “The New
Jim Crow” (2020 (2010)). Referring to a late nineteenth-century system
of laws that disenfranchised and segregated black Americans, Alexander
argues that the current criminal justice system in the US has the same
oppressive net effect. The shocking statistics certainly support her conten-
tion. In states with the greatest ethnic disparities “African American men
are sent to prison at a rate 27 to 57 times greater than that for European
American men” (Musick and Gunsaulus-Musick 2017, 32).
Whilst those who self-identify as black make up only 14% of the popula-
tion of the US, nearly half of those in prison are African American (Mauer
2006, 131). In 2010 one in three black men had a felony record (Alexander
2020 (2010), xxi). A conviction seriously reduces chances of employment,
often compounding pre-existing socio-economic pressures and impacting
a person’s wider family and community. The death penalty is dispropor-
tionately meted out to African Americans. Texas is a hard-line state when
it comes to capital punishment and has executed 573 people since 1982.
The state has never executed a European American for the death of an
African American but, according to the Texas Defender Service, when an

African American kills a European American the death penalty is invariably
on the table (Musick and Gunsaulus-Musick 2017, 119). Similar trends
are found in lots of other states.
In the UK many prison-based reports refer to BAME (Black, Asian or
Minority Ethnic) in statistical analysis. In 2020 people from BAME back-
grounds made up 27% of the prison population in England and Wales
(Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service 2020b). BAME people rep-
resent around 14% of the general population. According to the Lammy
Review, whilst 3% of the general population are black, they constitute 12%
of adults in prison and 20% of children in custody (Lammy 2017, 3). A
report analysing the proportion of custodial sentences handed out between
2008 and 2011 found that, for the same offences, a BAME person “were
sentenced to custody at a higher rate than White offenders” (Hopkins
2016, 1). Practical theologian Carver Anderson’s study into black young
men in Birmingham (England) noted how, across the country, they are
over-represented in the criminal justice system and stigmatised in many
media representations of crime (2015).
On both sides of the Atlantic, people of colour are much more likely to
be arrested, convicted and imprisoned than their white counterparts. In
the US much of this has been attributed to the so-called War on Drugs
that was launched in the early 1970s. This was a government-driven ‘get
tough’ clampdown on a perceived drugs epidemic (Mauer 2006, 151ff.).
It resulted in a disproportionate number of African American men being
incarcerated on long-term sentences (Musick and Gunsaulus-Musick
2017, 32). Much of this disparity arose due to sentencing laws around
cocaine. Prior to the introduction of the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010
those caught in possession of as little as five grams of crack cocaine attracted
a mandatory five-year federal prison sentence, whereas it would take a 100
times larger amount of the powdered form to warrant the same penalty.
Crack cocaine was cheaper than powder and so was used in predominantly
poor and black communities whereas the latter was more associated with
‘white yuppies’.
The crack/powdered cocaine issue highlights the intersectionality of
race and class in much of the systems of mass incarceration. Mauer observes
that “when we speak about race and the criminal justice system, we are
often in fact also talking about class” (2006, 177). ‘Class’, as a dimension
of incarceration, is an area I have some personal reflections about.
34 D. K. BEEDON
Class
In the eighteen months prior to beginning to write this book, the UK suf-
fered a number of national and local lockdowns due to the Covid-19 pan-
demic. Like many people, I used some of the enforced inactivity to stream
television series that I had been interested in but had never found the time
to watch when first broadcast. One series I picked up was Six Feet Under,
originally broadcast between 2001 and 2005 on the US HBO channel. Its
main characters ran a family funeral home in Los Angeles. Working my
way through the sixty-three episodes was an activity parallel to some back-
ground reading for this chapter. I was struck by how all three grown chil-
dren of the fictional Fisher family frequently and casually indulged in
taking illicit drugs. This was portrayed as somewhat urbane and recre-
ational in nature. A far cry from some sensationalist depictions of drugs-
related violence and crime that can otherwise be found on television. But
then, the Fishers were white and middle class. The lurid television depic-
tions are usually of poor and predominantly black communities.
In a global study of incarceration, Vivien Stern observed that large
numbers of incarcerated souls “are the neglected children of urban waste-
lands” (1998, 171). The connection between crime and social disadvan-
tage is not straightforward (Newburn 2016, 322). I certainly would not
posit some strong socially deterministic theory about the relationship
whereby having a certain upbringing almost guaranteed state incarcera-
tion. I grew up on some of the housing estates that the families of those I
served as a prison chaplain lived upon. In my formative years, I was what
right-wing newspapers at the time referred derogatively to as ‘a latch-key
kid’ from a ‘broken home’ whom, they suggested, would end up a delin-
quent and eventually acquire a criminal record. Although I was no saint, I
never did become a delinquent or a criminal.
The connection between crime and socio-economic location is a com-
plex one that’s hard to define accurately. There is, though, a long-standing
semantic association between poverty and criminality. As criminologist
Robert Reiner has pointed out, etymologically ‘villain’ and ‘rogue’ came
into the English language from French and Latin respectively but origi-
nally meant merely ‘peasant’ and ‘beggar’ (2017, 116). Socio-economic
and moral connotations became unhealthily entwined, as embodied in the
interrelationship between the workhouse and prison in nineteenth-century
England.
Early in the present century in the UK, a number of factors, varying

from seven to ten depending upon the study referenced, were identified as
contributing to desistance—the ability to avoid re-offending upon release
from custody. As a prison chaplain I was introduced to them as the Seven
Resettlement Pathways (see Social Exclusion Unit 2002, Home Affairs
Committee 2010, for further background). All of them can be related to
socio-economic factors:
• Accommodation
• Education, employment and training
• Health (physical and mental)
• Drugs and alcohol
• Finance, debt and benefit
• Children and families
• Attitudes, thinking and behaviour
The less socio-economically advantaged a person is, the more likely

these factors are present in a negative way in a person’s life. If these are
factors that, if positively addressed, reduce the likelihood of re-offending,
it follows that, if negatively present in adolescence and adulthood there is
an increased likelihood of incarceration. Criminologist and former prison
governor Jamie Bennett has noted that many residents in HM prisons are
seeking to realise the same dreams of material success and status that many
share but, coming “as they do from circumstances of poverty and depriva-
tion”, conventional means of achieving those goals are not open to them
and crime provides a more accessible avenue (2012, 11).
Sociologist Loïc Wacquant noted in a 2009 study that two-thirds of
county jail detainees in the US lived in households with income that was
less than half that of the official poverty line (2009, 70ff.). Despite this,
less than a quarter received government assistance. Whilst 77% of
Americans at that time grew up in a two-parent home, only 40% of detain-
ees did so. Almost a third claimed to have an alcoholic parent or guardian
and one in twelve stated home life featured drug addiction. A quarter
grew up in public housing where the intersection of race and class is at its
most vicious and violent.
Being socio-economically disadvantaged does not directly lead to crim-
inal behaviour. Many of the men from such backgrounds I ministered
36 D. K. BEEDON
amongst described themselves as the ‘black sheep’ of their otherwise law-

abiding families. Many had siblings whom they described as having ‘done
well for themselves’ from the same unpromising starting point in life.
However, the socio-economic factors explored here do provide indicators
that, statistically, are known to increase the chances of arrest and
incarceration.
My time as a prison chaplain was spent in male establishments. Males
make up 94% of incarcerated people in England and Wales, and 90% in the
US. Whilst crime is often caricatured as ‘a young man’s game’, incarcera-
tion for women can be particularly challenging.
Gender
On 27 September 2019, staff at HM Prison Bronzefield (Ashford,
England) were alerted by residents at morning unlock to what appeared to
be blood in a woman’s cell. On investigation, a newborn baby (Baby A)
was found dead in the cell with its mother [child’s gender anonymised].
An independent report into Baby A’s death described the mother as “a
vulnerable young woman with a complex history who found it difficult to
trust people in authority” and could be “a challenging person to manage”
(Prisons and Probation Ombudsman 2021, 2). The young mother had
expressed suicidal ideation but, against established practice and policy, was
not put on suicide and self-harm monitoring.
The independent Ombudsman who investigates such deaths recorded
numerous shocking failures concerning the care of this woman which ulti-
mately led to a child’s death in custody. Lack of a trauma-informed
approach at Bronzefield was a key factor that resulted in a tragic outcome.
Whilst, thankfully, such extreme examples of custodial neglect are rare,
the story of Baby A’s mother is not atypical for the female prison estate.
Her childhood had been traumatic and Children’s Services had been
involved in her life from birth. This resulted in an inability to form rela-
tionships of trust with authorities and she developed habits of alcohol and
substance misuse. Patterns of offending behaviour accompanied these
developments.
As with the male prison population, the number of females in custody
has increased dramatically in England and Wales, doubling between 1995
and 2010 (this and following information from Prison Reform Trust
2017). Women are nearly twice as likely as men are to be sent to prison for
first offences, despite them frequently being the primary carer for chil-
dren. Most offences are for shoplifting and only 16% of female convictions
involve violence (24% for men). Over half of women in custody (com-
pared to 27% of men) reported being victims of emotional, physical or
sexual abuse as children and 57% disclosed being subjected to domestic
violence. Related to such trauma, 59% reported having a problem with
alcohol.
Whilst in 1980 around 26,000 females were incarcerated in the US, by
2019 the number had risen to 222,455, an eight-fold increase (twice that
of men) (this and the following information from The Sentencing Project
2020). Around 60% of imprisoned women are mothers of children under
age eighteen. In state prisons, women are more likely than men to be serv-
ing time for drug or property offences. According to the American
Psychological Association, the US’ race to incarcerate concerning women
has failed to take notice of the significant levels of cumulative trauma
amongst incarcerated females, compounded by gross economic disparities
they had suffered (Cowan 2019).
Summary Conclusion
In this chapter, I have explored the socio-historical evolution of modern
mass incarceration as found in England and Wales and the US. These sys-
tems did not fall from the heavens as pre-formed solutions to crime. They
were designed by human beings to incapacitate other human beings. As
such, they were shaped by socially constructed views of what it means to
be human (anthropology) and how deviancy should be punished (crimi-
nology/penology). Whilst forms of imprisonment have evolved to some
degree over the last 200 years, their institutional DNA remains pretty
much unchanged. If anything, as we have seen, the premise has grown
stronger that the best way to deal with those convicted of criminal offences
is to imprison them, in greater numbers and for longer.
What is clear from the foregoing discussion is that those who populate
the prisons our taxes pay for have often done heinous deeds (not always,
though) and are also people carrying vulnerabilities from being victims
themselves before they victimised others. Additionally, they are often
caught in the intersectionality of race, class and gender. Poverty and colour
are significant factors that, on both sides of the Atlantic, determine life
outcomes regarding incarceration.
Another random document with
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SEMI-SOLID FOODS
The following lists of foods are given for ready reference:[17]

Jellies.
(a) Meat jellies and gelatin; veal, beef, chicken, mutton.
(b) Starch jellies, flavored with fruit; cornstarch,
arrowroot, sago, tapioca.
(c) Fruit jellies and gelatin.
Custards.
(a) Junkets of milk, or milk and egg (rennet curdled),
flavored with nutmeg, etc.
(b) Egg, milk custard, boiled or baked.
(c) Cornstarch, tapioca, boiled custard.
(d) Frozen custard (New York ice cream.)
Gruels. (Farinaceous.)
(a) Milk gruels.
(b) Water gruels.
Jellies.—Meat Jellies are made in two ways:

(1) Cook soup meat (containing gristle and bone) slowly for a long
time in just enough water to cover. Strain and set the liquid away in a
mold to cool and set. If desired, bits of shredded meat may be added
to the liquid before molding.
(2) Use meat broth and gelatin in the proportion of 1 tablespoon
gelatin to three-quarters of a cup of hot broth. Pour into mold and set
on ice.
Starch Jellies. Starch jellies are made by cooking in a pint of fruit
juice or water until clear, 2 tablespoonfuls of tapioca, arrowroot, sago,
cornstarch, or flour. Sweeten to taste.
If water is used, fresh fruit may be used either in the jelly or in a
sauce poured over the jelly.
Fruit Jellies. These are made:
(1) Of fruit juice and sugar in equal quantities, cooked until it will set
when cooled;
(2) Of fruit juice and gelatin in the proportion of 1 tablespoon of
gelatin to three-fourths of a cup of fruit juice, or one-half box gelatin to
11/2 pints of juice. Sugar to taste. Made tea or coffee, or cocoa or
lemonade may be used in the same proportion.
Custards. These are made with (1) milk, (2) milk and eggs, (3)
milk, egg, and some farinaceous substances as rice, cornstarch,
tapioca. In the first the coagulum is produced by the addition of
rennet, in the other two by the application of heat.
Plain Junket. Dissolve in a cup of lukewarm milk (never warmer), a
tablespoon of sugar or caramel syrup. Add a quarter of a junket tablet,
previously dissolved in a tablespoon of cold water. Stir a few times,
add vanilla, nuts, or nutmeg if desired. Pour into a cup and set aside
to cool and solidify. This may be served plain or with whipped cream,
or boiled custard.
Egg-Milk Custard. When eggs are used for thickening, not less than
four eggs should be used to a quart of milk (more eggs make it richer).
Snowballs. Heat 1 pint of milk with sugar to taste. Beat the whites of
3 eggs stiff, then beat in 11/2 tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Drop
by spoonfuls into the hot milk, turn in three minutes, and take out.
Beat yolks of the eggs, pour the hot milk over them, and allow to
thicken. Do not boil. Arrange snowballs in dish and pour custard over.
Serve cool.
Boiled Custard. One pint of milk, 2 eggs, one-half cup of sugar, one-
half saltspoon of salt. Scald the milk, add the salt and sugar, and stir
until dissolved. Beat the eggs very thick and smooth. Pour the boiling
milk on the eggs slowly, stirring all the time. Pour the mixture into a
double boiler, set over the fire, and stir for ten minutes. Add flavoring.
As soon as a thickening of the mixture is noticed remove from the fire,
pour into a dish, and set away to cool. This custard makes cup
custard, the sauce for such puddings as snow pudding, and when
decorated with spoonfuls of beaten egg-white, makes floating island.
Baked Custard. Proceed as in boiled custard, but instead of pouring
into a double boiler pour into a baking dish. Set the dish in a pan of
water, place in the oven, and bake until the mixture is set in the
middle.
Farinaceous Custards. Make like boiled custard, using one less egg
and adding one-quarter cup of farina, tapioca, cornstarch, arrowroot,
or cooked rice to the hot milk and egg.
Sago should be soaked overnight before using.
Tapioca should be soaked one hour before using.
Coffee Custard. Scald one tablespoon of ground coffee in milk and
strain before proceeding as for boiled custard.
Chocolate Custard. Add one square of grated chocolate to the milk.
Caramel Custard. Melt the dry sugar until golden brown, add the hot
milk, and when dissolved proceed as before. Bake.
Milk for Puddings or Stewed Fruit (Ringer). Boil a small piece of
lemon rind and 2 cloves in a pint of milk. Mix half a teaspoonful of
arrowroot in a little cold milk and add it to the boiled milk. Stir until
about the consistency of cream. Beat up the yolks of 3 eggs in a little
milk. Beat into the hot milk taken off the fire and as it cools add the
eggs and a tablespoonful of orange flower water, stirring it constantly
until quite cool. Keep in a very cool place until required for use.
Bread Jelly. Pour boiling water on stale bread and allow it to soak
until soft. Pour off the water, add fresh water to cover, and boil until
stiff and until it becomes jelly-like when it cools. It may be eaten with
milk or cream.
SOLID FOODS
(Suitable for Invalids)

Toasts.
(a) Cream toast.
(b) Milk toast.
(c) Water toast.
Creams.
(a) Plain.
(b) Whipped.
(c) Ice cream.
Oils.
(a) Plain olive, cotton seed, or nut.
(b) Butter.
(c) Emulsion, as mayonnaise.
(d) Cod-liver oil, plain or emulsified.
Cereals.
(a) Porridges and mushes—Oatmeal, corn meal, wheat,
rice, etc.
(b) Dry preparations—Shredded wheat biscuit, corn
flakes, puffed rice, puffed wheat, triscuit.
Breads.
(a) Plain—White, Graham, nutri-meal, whole wheat,
brown, rye, etc.
(b) Toasts—Dry, buttered, zwieback.
(c) Crackers—Soda, Graham, oatmeal, Boston butter,
milk.
(d) Biscuits—Yeast biscuits (twenty-four hours old),
baking-powder biscuit, beaten biscuit.
Egg Preparations.
(a) Boiled, poached, scrambled, baked.
(b) Omelets.
(c) Souffles of meat and of potatoes.
Meats.
(a) Beef or mutton—Broiled or roasted.
(b) Chicken, turkey, or game—Broiled or roasted.
(c) Fish—Broiled, boiled, or baked.
(d) Oysters—Canned, stewed, etc.
(e) Clams—Chowder, broiled, or baked.
Vegetables.
(a) Potatoes—Baked, boiled, creamed, or escalloped.
(b) Sweet potatoes, baked or boiled.
(c) Green peas, plain or creamed.
(d) Lima beans, plain or creamed; string beans, plain or
creamed; cauliflower, plain or creamed; carrots; parsnips.
Fruits.
(a) Fresh—Oranges, grapes, melons, etc.
(b) Stewed—Apples, plums, apricots, pears, berries, etc.
(c) Baked—Apples, bananas, pears.
(d) Canned—Peaches, apricots, plums, pears, etc.
(e) Preserved—Peaches, plums, quinces, etc.
Gruels. Gruels are a mixture of grain or flour with either milk or
water. They require long cooking and may be flavored with sugar,
nutmeg, cinnamon, or almond.
Take the meal or flour (oatmeal, 2 tablespoons, or corn meal, 1
tablespoon, or arrowroot, 11/2 tablespoons). Sift it slowly into 11/2
cups boiling water, simmer for an hour or two. Strain off the liquid; add
to it 1 teaspoon of sugar, season with salt, and add 1 cup of warm
milk.
Water Gruel. If water gruel is desired, let the last cup of liquid added
be water instead of milk.
Cream Gruel. A cream gruel may be made by using rich cream
instead of milk or water.
Barley Gruel. Barley gruel (usually a water gruel) is prepared as
follows: Moisten 4 tablespoons of barley flour in a little cold water and
add it slowly to the boiling water. Stir and boil for twenty minutes.
Toasts.—Cream Toast. Toast the bread slowly until brown on both

sides. Butter and pour over each slice enough warm cream to moisten
(the cream may be thickened slightly and the butter may be omitted).
Milk Toast. One tablespoon of cornstarch or flour; one cup of milk,
salt to taste, and boil. Butter the toast and pour over it the above white
sauce.
Water Toast. Pour over plain or buttered toast enough boiling water
to thoroughly moisten it.
Souffles of Fruit, etc. The distinguished feature of a souffle is a
pastry or pulpy foundation mixture, and the addition of stiffly beaten
egg-white. A souffle may or may not be baked.
Plain Souffle. Two tablespoons flour; 1 cup of liquid (water, milk, or
fruit juice); 3 or 4 eggs; sugar to suit the fruit. If thick fruit pulp is used,
omit the thickening. Beat the egg-yolks until thick. Add sugar gradually
and continue beating. Add the fruit (if lemon juice add some rind also).
Fold in the well-beaten whites. Bake in a buttered dish (set in a pan of
hot water) for thirty-five or forty minutes in a slow oven.
Fresh Fruit Souffle. Reduce the fruit to a pulp. Strawberries,
peaches, prunes, apples, bananas, etc., may be used. Sweeten the
pulp. Beat the egg-white to a stiff froth, add the fruit pulp slowly. Chill
and serve with whipped cream or soft custard.
Chocolate Souffle. Two tablespoons flour; 2 tablespoons butter;
three-quarters cup of milk; one-third cup of sugar; 2 tablespoons hot
water. Melt the butter, add the flour, and stir well. Pour the milk in
gradually and cook until well boiled. Add the melted chocolate, to
which the sugar and hot water have been added. Beat in the yolks
and fold in the whites of the eggs. Bake twenty-five minutes.
Farina Souffle. Cook the farina (4 tablespoons) in a pint of boiling
water. Stir this with the egg-yolks, add sugar or salt, and later fold in
the egg-whites, flavor, and set away to cool.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Many of the recipes given for fruit beverages are adapted
from Practical Dietetics by Alida Frances Pattee, Publisher, Mt.
Vernon, N. Y.
[17] Nutrition and Dietetics, by Dr. W. S. Hall, D. Appleton &
Co., New York.
CHAPTER XII
INFANT FEEDING
O NE of the fundamental problems of to-day, as it was of yesterday and will be of

to-morrow, is the correct feeding of infants and children.
Every civilized country faces the same problem, largely because the artificial
feeding of infants has become so prevalent.
Unfortunately, many women who must labor outside of the home must resort
partially, if not entirely, to artificial feeding of their infants. Usually on account of the
inconvenience of breast feeding and the strain on the mother, the infant is given
artificial food, often improperly prepared. Although infant mortality is high among the
poorer classes, it is marvelous that so many of these infants survive.
It is an encouraging fact, however, that women among the well-to-do and educated
classes are appreciating the importance of breast feeding and that the number of
these who are not only willing but anxious to nurse their infants is increasing.
The mother should be firm in her decision to nurse her child and be encouraged to
persevere in efforts to secure the proper development of the breasts before the birth of
the child, that the quantity as well as the quality of the milk may be adequate.
The fact that nearly one-fourth of the civilized race dies during the first year of life is
astounding. This mortality is due directly or indirectly to nutritional disturbances that
could in a great measure be prevented if the babies were properly nursed at the
breast or if the artificial feeding was carefully regulated.
Of six hundred and forty-one infants under observation by Dublin, in Fall River,
Mass., five hundred and sixty-five were breast-fed and seventy-six bottle-fed. After the
first week there were one hundred and six deaths. In seventy-four of these the infants
were breast-fed, and in thirty-two, bottle-fed; nearly one-half of the bottle-fed babies
died and only 10 per cent. of the breast-fed babies. The breast-fed child, therefore,
has five chances to live where the bottle-fed child has one.
One fundamental principle on which all of the leading specialists in the study of the
baby agree, is that the milk of the healthy mother is the only ideal baby food. Every
mother should be made to realize the importance of nursing her baby for at least nine
or ten months, unless circumstances beyond control make it impossible or
inadvisable.
Proper care of the breasts and of the general health during the expectant period will
usually secure a sufficient flow of milk for the child’s needs.
The mental attitude of the mother has much to do with the secretion of milk;
therefore she should cultivate the habit of kindly, cheerful, healthful thoughts. She
should keep her circulation and vitality up to par.
She should take regular exercise and be out in the fresh air daily.
During the first two or three days the child receives little nourishment from the
breast, simply a few ounces daily of a yellowish substance known as colostrum, which
is supposed to have a laxative effect on its bowels.
It is, however, usual to put the child to the breast at regular intervals of about four
hours after the first day, to stimulate the milk secretion, which should be quite free on
the third day; it, however, may be slow in coming for a day to two longer.
A teaspoonful or two of warm boiled water, or of a five per cent. solution of milk-
sugar may be given every few hours, in fact it is considered advisable by some
physicians, in order to lessen somewhat the loss in weight which takes place during
the first week.
If the free flow of milk is delayed beyond forty-eight hours, some nourishment must
be given. A little modified cow’s milk is best. The preparation of this will be taken up
under Artificial Feeding.
The mother should not permit herself to become easily discouraged about her ability
to nurse her child, for even though the supply at first seems very deficient and it is
necessary to give the baby other nourishment, it should be put to the breast at regular
intervals, as the sucking by the child stimulates the secretion of milk. The flow of milk
often increases when the mother becomes more active.
When the milk flows freely, the contents of one breast is sufficient for one nursing,
and the breasts should be used alternately, that is one breast at one feeding and the
other at the next.
Nursing should not last longer than from ten to twenty minutes. Too rapid nursing is
apt to cause vomiting. If it is necessary to check the flow of milk somewhat, it can be
done by pressing the breast slightly between the fingers.
There is a warmth, a purity, and a vitality to the mother’s milk that is impossible to
secure in any artificial food no matter how carefully and skilfully prepared. It is also
germ-free.
Some women seem unable to nurse their babies for more than two or three months
and it is sometimes thought that it is not worth while for a woman to nurse her baby
unless she can do so for a considerable time. This, however, is a great mistake,
because there is no time in the baby’s life when it is more important for it to have
breast milk than in the beginning. This is the time when the baby’s digestion is most
easily disturbed and most difficult to correct. Every day or week that a baby gets
breast milk gives it a better start.
It has been thought that it is dangerous to use both breast and artificial feeding. This
idea is erroneous. The artificial food cannot make the breast milk hard to digest, while
the breast feeding seems to make the artificial food digest more readily. This may be
due in part to the ferments which the breast milk contains, but more probably is due to
the fact that the baby is able to utilize the proteins of human milk to build tissue when
it cannot so readily utilize the proteins of the artificial food.
Wet nursing is resorted to less frequently now than in the past
on account of better methods for artificial feeding. Wet Nursing
If the mother is unable to nurse the child herself and the conditions are ideal, that is
the wet nurse a healthy, happy woman with a thriving baby of her own, and very
particular in the care of her person, this is better than artificial feeding.
Total absence of milk, after earnest efforts to stimulate its
Contra-Indications secretion necessitates artificial feeding.
to Nursing
If the mother has chorea, epilepsy, or tuberculosis in any form,
it is best to resort to artificial feeding; also if the mother has syphilis and the baby is
free from it. In these conditions the child must often be taken from the mother to avoid
infection.
If the mother has had serious complications in pregnancy or parturition, the
physician must decide on the advisability of natural or artificial feeding.
In case of nephritis, except perhaps in a very mild form, the milk is toxic and
therefore nursing from the breast should be prohibited.
Sometimes in acute contagious disease it is safer to nurse the baby than to subject
it to the dangers of artificial food. However, when the mother’s temperature exceeds
101 or 102 degrees, the milk will probably possess toxic qualities and disagree with
the infant.
Every nursing mother should acquaint herself with the process

Anatomy and of the infant’s digestion, as many of the infantile difficulties are
Physiology of the caused by overfeeding or underfeeding, due to ignorance on this
Infant subject.
The alimentary tract of the new-born infant differs in many ways from that of the
adult.
As compared with other mammals, the human infant is the most helpless and
undeveloped and therefore the most delicate and easily affected. It is practically
dependent on its mother for nourishment which will completely supply its needs.
The capacity of the stomach, after careful study, has been placed at from 1 to 2
ounces at birth, 2 to 3 ounces at the end of the first month, 6 ounces at the 6th month,
and from 9 to 10 ounces at the end of the first year. This is simply an average guide,
as stomachs vary somewhat in size. Quantities somewhat larger than the foregoing
are sometimes fed, but some of the food has passed beyond the pylorus before the
last of it is taken. Digestion begins as soon as the food enters the stomach.
The secretion of bile begins within 12 hours after birth, increases rapidly, and is fully
established within a week or ten days.
The pancreatic ferments which digest starches and sugar are present in the new-
born, although scanty; the sucking movements of the child when nursing exercise the
salivary glands so that saliva is secreted; but starch digestion is not completed in the
mouth, hence starch and a greater proportion of sugar than is in the mother’s milk are
difficult for the infant to digest.
The intestines, when compared with the length of the body, are relatively long in
infants, but the muscular coat is comparatively weak; digestion is therefore relatively
slow and more subject to derangement by substances that influence peristalsis.
The fact that infants vomit with comparatively little effort, the food overflowing from
an overloaded stomach, is due to the relatively feeble closure of the cardiac orifice.
The stomach contents are kept germ-free by the secretion of hydrochloric acid and
the upper intestine is nearly free from bacteria in breast-fed infants, because of the
antibacterial nature of the intestinal secretion. In some digestive disturbances this
safeguard fails and bacteria develop rapidly.
Intestinal disturbance in the breast-fed infant is most often
Intestinal caused by overfeeding, the infant often nursing too frequently,
Disturbances thereby emptying the breasts and securing a high fat ratio.
Frequent nursing does not give the stomach time to empty and
thus digestive disturbances are apt to occur. Therefore, as a means of relieving
intestinal trouble in the infant, nursing at regular intervals and not too frequently, is of
much importance.
When digestive disturbance has occurred it is best to stop nursing for twenty-four
hours, giving the infant weak barley gruel sweetened with saccharin. At the end of
twenty-four hours let the infant nurse at the breast for from three to five minutes, this
being preceded by a small drink of water.
As the bowel condition improves, the time at the breast may be gradually
lengthened.
The mother should watch her diet to avoid too much rich food, and foods that seem
difficult to digest, as certain articles of food in the mother’s diet often causes gastric
disturbances in the infant.
She should also carefully watch her thoughts, keeping them well poised and upon
kindness, love, and peace. Worry or unkind thoughts will affect the mother’s milk and
disturb the child’s digestion very quickly.
Fits of temper in the child also disturb its digestion.
Regular nursing habits should be insisted on, as indigestion,

Times of Feeding colic, and diarrhea often result from irregular nursing.
Some authorities discourage night feeding as unnecessary with a normal baby, but
most physicians agree that the child should be aroused during the day in order not to
miss a feeding, as it will fall asleep again directly after nursing and will soon get into
the habit of awakening at feeding time.
The following table from Holt may be used as a guide in breast-feeding:
Number in twenty- Intervals during the Night nursing between 9 P.M.
Age
four hours day hours and 7 A.M.
1st day 4 6 1
2d day 6 4 1
3d to 28th day 10 2 2
4th to 13th week 8 21/2 1
3d to 5th month 7 3 1
5th to 12th month 6 3 0
There may be some slight deviations from this if the child is ill and small for its age.
It is a good general rule to feed the child according to the age with which its weight
corresponds.
There can be no regular rule followed for all. Some authorities hold that fifteen- to
twenty-minute feedings at four-hour intervals during the day, with one feeding at night,
are sufficient, but it depends on the child. Some babies’ stomachs are smaller than
others, and some do not nurse regularly, but play and are inattentive to the nursing. In
either event the child will not get sufficient nourishment at four-hour intervals. The
intelligent mother can determine what is best.
In breast-feeding, as well as in most of the formulæ for bottle-

feeding, there is an allowance for an amount of fluid that, under Water
ordinary circumstances, satisfies the baby’s requirements.
Additional water is often necessary, especially during the hot weather when the body
heat is regulated through evaporation from the skin. The most effective means of
promoting perspiration is the giving of water. This, however, should not be done to
excess. Eight ounces for a 10-pound baby, given in divided doses during the day, will
be sufficient.
It is best to give the water when the stomach is nearly or quite empty. It should be
boiled and cooled and should be given by the bottle as the child will then take at
intervals all that its thirst requires, and the danger of choking as a result of too hasty
swallowing is avoided.
The growth and general condition of the child will, of course,

Normal be influenced by the quality and quantity of the milk. The birth
Development in the weight of 7 to 71/2 pounds is usually doubled by the end of the
Breast-Fed
fifth month and trebled by the end of the year. The average gain
is from 5 to 8 ounces a week during the first few months and from 2 to 4 ounces a
week the last few months of the year.
If the mother’s milk is deficient in any way, the child becomes fretful and loses
weight, or the weight remains stationary. In such cases the physician usually examines
the milk to determine its quality and advises some means of improving it, or in some
way adding to the baby’s food the element in which the mother’s milk is lacking.
The physical condition of the mother often affects the baby’s nourishment, and
besides resorting, temporarily, to means for improving the quality of the milk, she
should build up her general vitality through regular exercise for the spine and the vital
organs, deep breathing of fresh air, and regular rest.
While a scanty food supply will diminish the flow of milk, overloading the stomach at
meal time and taking quantities of rich food between meals, as so many nursing
mothers, think is necessary, usually does little to increase the quantity or improve the
quality of the milk, but often results in an accumulation of superfluous flesh and
disturbed digestion, which quickly affects the child.
Sometimes a more restricted diet together with specially directed exercises to
relieve any digestive disturbance and correct constipation, and relaxing exercises for
the nerves, will do more than anything else to improve the quality of the milk.
Mothers should particularly avoid becoming overtired.
When the milk is good, but the quantity deficient, massage of the breasts three or
four times a day for five or ten minutes will increase the supply. One effective means
of increasing the secretion of the mammary glands is the mechanical stimulus of
suction. If a robust baby can be put to the breast for a time it may develop an ample
flow of milk for a puny infant whose powers of suction are feeble.
A good malt extract with meals sometimes tends to increase the flow of milk. When
the quality and quantity of the milk are deficient, the physician usually advises a very
nourishing diet and a tonic. This nourishment does not of necessity require an
excessive amount of liquid.
When the quantity is sufficient, but the quality poor, it is usually necessary to wean
the baby, if it is several months old, although mother’s milk, even if below standard in
quality, is better for the infant than cow’s milk, at least during the first few months.
Nervousness, sleeplessness, worry, and grief have a decided effect on the milk
supply and on the baby. Nervous mothers are apt to have an abundance of milk one
day and little the next day; frequently the milk will disappear suddenly.
When it is possible, the baby should be weaned gradually.

Weaning Although there is no set time for weaning, it is not advisable to
feed the child exclusively from the breast after the eighth or tenth
month. Bunge holds that human milk contains too little iron at this period and the
babies are apt to become pale and undernourished.
When additional feeding is decided on, the physician should prescribe the
preparation. A bottle a day should be substituted for the breast feeding at first and,
gradually, additional bottle feedings, until, after about a month the breast is entirely
withdrawn.
After the eighth month and until the age of twelve months, as a general rule, cow’s
milk should be diluted and sweetened by mixing eight ounces of barley water and
thirty-two ounces of milk, adding an ounce of cane-sugar or milk-sugar, and dividing
the whole into five 8-ounce portions.
Additional food may be given to the healthy child after the eighth or ninth month.
Orange juice or other fruit juice one or twice a day should be given about an hour
before feeding. A teaspoonful may be given at first and the amount gradually
increased to about two tablespoonfuls a day.
Orange juice is a specific in conditions of scurvy resulting from improper feeding.
The child usually improves rapidly after it begins to take the juice.
Beef juice, meat broths, or strained vegetable soup may be given in increasing
amounts up to 5 or 6 ounces daily.
Zwieback and whole wheat or Graham crackers are permissible in small amounts
after the ninth month. After nine months the healthy baby should also have a soft-
boiled egg occasionally, also baked apple and well-cooked, mashed spinach or
carrots.
Food should be given only at regular intervals and nothing but water between
feedings.
Starch-digesting ferments are present at birth in sufficient amounts to digest the
sugar in milk, but they do not develop sufficiently to digest starches until about the
twelfth month, so white bread, crackers made from white flour, potatoes, rice, etc.,
should not be given the child under a year.
When artificial feeding is necessary, the physician must decide

what modification is best for the baby. One can only determine Artificial Feeding
by experimenting upon the actual percentages of fat, proteins,
and sugar which each baby needs, following, in general, the proportions contained in
mother’s milk, because while many babies thrive on a food of this composition, some
do not. The formulæ given are simply a guide, as the proportions may need to be
changed, or may need to be made weaker in some cases and stronger in others.
The composition of human milk, however, is a guide to the infant’s digestive ability.
This must be determined by a careful study of the individual baby as every baby is a
problem by itself.
As previously mentioned, no artificial food is the same as human milk, although it
may contain the same proportions of the different elements, and it is often difficult,
especially during the first few months, to prepare a combination on which the child will
thrive.
Cow’s milk, properly prepared, is the nearest available substitute for human milk. It
must be modified, as the digestion of the calf at birth is equal to that of an infant at
eight or nine months.
Farmers have in recent years become more particular about the care of their cows
and cleanliness in milking because the educational campaign with regard to the
danger to human life from tuberculous animals has caused a greater public demand
for good, clean milk.
Many infectious diseases are conveyed by milk, and impure milk is a large cause of
the extraordinarily high mortality of early infancy. With the improvement of the milk
supply, the decline in the infant death-rate has been wondrously gratifying.
Manufacturers have taken advantage of the fact that the public has become a little
afraid of cow’s milk and have extensively advertised their prepared foods, claiming
them to be the best substitute for mother’s milk. However, experiments have proven
that these statements for the most part are misleading, the composition of the foods
not being suited to the actual requirements of the infant. Some prominent physicians
think that infant mortality has been increasing since prepared foods have been used
so extensively.
One leading authority states that “clean, fresh cow’s milk, properly modified, is the
best substitute available. It is to be preferred to any prepared food, no matter how
sweeping may be the manufacturers’ claim for it.”
The most striking thing about the prepared foods is their tremendous excess of
carbohydrates, either cane-sugar or sugar derived from starch by the process of
malting. Condensed milk, in particular, contains much too large a percentage of cane-
sugar for the child.
Another authority states:
An excess of sugar is likely to damage the organism by the production of poisonous
substances in the body. This is particularly true in those infants who are already
suffering from indigestion. An excess of sugar in such a baby is likely to render him
severely and dangerously sick and result in catastrophe.
The study of the bacteriology of the alimentary tract of the
new-born infant reveals a most interesting fact and explains why Bacteriology
artificial feeding is often so difficult and dangerous.
In the intestinal canal at all times many varieties of vegetable organisms (bacteria)
are present. These are called floral organisms. Some of these aid digestion while
some others increase disturbance in the intestines, particularly if in excess, or if
digestive derangements occur.
The flora which predominate are those peculiar to the infant which is properly
digesting human milk. This accounts for the uniform action of the bowels in breast-fed
infants. As soon as the child gets milk from the breast, the intestinal flora assume this
definite form.
When cow’s milk or any other food is given, the intestinal flora change. When the
change is made too suddenly, these new flora which live on the digested products of
human milk gradually disappear and the action of the new flora often causes intestinal
derangements which the infant is not strong enough to overcome.
If artificial feeding must be resorted to, the composition should

Composition of resemble mother’s milk as nearly as possible. It is impossible to
Human Milk duplicate it exactly and even though the elements and the
proportion of them are the same, the bacterial flora will be
different and consequently the effect also.
If the breasts are emptied regularly, human milk varies little in composition after the
first few weeks. According to Holt there is an average in mother’s milk of
Fat 4%
Sugar 7%
Protein 1.5%
Salt 0.2%
Water 87.3%
When the baby has been fed at the breast for several months,
Adaptation of Cow’s
pure cow’s milk sometimes agrees very well, if overfeeding is
Milk
avoided.
The amount of milk taken every twenty-four hours by a healthy infant is usually
about 11/4 ounces to the pound of the baby’s weight.
A normal infant of twelve pounds would be taking between twelve and eighteen
ounces of milk in its twenty-four hour mixture.
Budin recommends one-tenth of the body-weight daily of milk and reports excellent
results in infants after the fifth or sixth month, weighing from thirteen to fifteen pounds.
Most infants under the age of nine months are more or less incapable of digesting
cow’s milk undiluted. If artificial food is resorted to from the start, practically all
physicians agree that the milk should be diluted or otherwise modified during the first
few months at least.
Milk diluted with water is often given, one part of milk to two parts of water. This
reduces the protein to about the amount found in breast milk.
It is necessary to keep up the proportion of protein, as this alone contains the
important food element, nitrogen. From one-half to three-fourths of an ounce of milk-
sugar is added to the twenty-four hours’ supply of food to approximate the seven per
cent. found in breast milk.
The proportion of milk and milk-sugar is gradually increased and the water
decreased, so that at the end of the first or second month the baby gets equal parts of
milk and water and about an ounce more of milk-sugar. This process is continued until,
near the end of the first year, the child is on whole milk. The sugar is lessened as the
water is omitted.
If, after a few months, it is desired to give a baby starch in its food, cereal waters
made of barley, rice, wheat, or oatmeal may be used in place of plain water.
As cow’s milk leaves the stomach more slowly than mother’s milk, longer intervals
between feeding seem advisable. When the breast-fed infant receives nourishment
every two and one-half to three hours, an infant given a cow’s-milk preparation would
be fed every three and one-half or four hours.
The most important thing is to prevent both overfeeding and underfeeding as these
are often the greatest factors in producing infantile disturbances. A too rapid gain in
weight, (from 8 to 12 ounces a week), which often occurs in artificially fed infants, is
not a good sign.
Milk prepared according to the formula desired by the physician can now be
secured from milk laboratories in all of our larger cities. However, the milk is apt to
spoil in transit, and to secure its freshness when one is not in or near a large city, it is
best to prepare it at home. Any intelligent mother or nurse can do this very
satisfactorily if the physician gives definite instructions.
Its careful preparation is quite as important as the correct formula.
Mineral (calcium) and protein are bone and other tissue builders, and it is a
significant fact that cow’s milk contains about twice as much protein and a little more
than twice as much of the mineral as mother’s milk, indicating that the growth of the
human infant is to be slow. The calf requires about four years for full growth and the
human being twenty-one years. Both human and cow’s milk, however, contain an
equal amount of fat, the heat-producing element, as Nature intended that the infant
should be warm and active.
It seems almost impossible to get milk from the cow as clean and free from bacteria
as it should be and therefore sterilization and pasteurization are resorted to almost
universally. Various substances such as formaldehyd, boric acid, and salicylic acid are
used by dealers to preserve the milk. These all have a deleterious effect on the child.
Therefore the safety of the child demands that the mother choose a reliable dairy. The
milk may be analyzed occasionally to make sure of its purity.
A very popular milk preparation and one frequently prescribed
by physicians is the top-milk method as originated by Dr. Holt. Top-Milk
Top-milk is that at the top of milk bottles in which milk has been allowed to stand for
five or six hours.
The cream at the top contains the most fat. For instance, in a quart of milk that has
been permitted to stand, the
Upper 4 ounces contain 20 per cent. of fat.
” 6 ” ” 16 ” ” ” ”
” 8 ” ” 12 ” ” ” ”
” 10 ” ” 11 ” ” ” ”
” 12 ” ” 9 ” ” ” ”
” 14 ” ” 8 ” ” ” ”
” 16 ” ” 7 ” ” ” ”
” 20 ” ” 6 ” ” ” ”
” 24 ” ” 5 ” ” ” ”
To remove the top-milk, the first ounce is taken out with a spoon and the remainder
with a Chapin milk dipper which contains one ounce.
The following formula is considered a good top-milk mixture, although it is not
supposed to meet the needs of all infants and would therefore have to be modified in
some cases and made stronger in others.
TOP-MILK MIXTURE
Top-milk (upper 8 ounces) 21/2 ozs.;
Bottom-milk 1 oz.;
Limewater 1/ oz.;
2
Milk-sugar 1 measure (1/2 oz.);
Water, sufficient to make 8 ozs.
The sugar is dissolved by boiling it in the quantity of water to be used for the
mixture. If not perfectly clear, it is strained through cheesecloth.
The one thing to be particularly guarded against is overloading the stomach with
rich food. On account of the high percentage of fat, digestive disturbances often occur
when top-milk is used. Some infants can dispose of an abundance of fat from the
beginning and most of them can after six or nine months, but many infants have
difficulty in digesting fat. The condition called “fat rickets” may exist, though the child
may seem to thrive and increase in weight. Its flesh, however, is not hard and firm as it
should be in health.
The cream from Guernsey and Jersey cows is usually too rich for infants and
therefore the best milk for the baby is that from Holstein or grade cows. The mixed
milk from various cows is usually best.
The physician can determine from the stools if the fat ratio is too high, in which case
it is best to use top-milk lower in percentage of fat, and lengthen the feeding intervals
to four hours.
If the additional expense of certified milk can be met, it is

Certified Milk advisable to use it in preparing the baby’s food, as it is
reasonably constant in its composition and is prepared under the
most hygienic conditions, in accordance with the requirements of the American
Association of Medical Milk Commissions.
All utensils used in preparing the baby’s milk must be absolutely clean. Bacteria
develop very quickly in milk and, therefore, the bottles, nipples, etc., should be kept as
germ-free as possible by being boiled daily, and the nipples, when not in use, should
be kept in a solution of boracic acid (one-fourth ounce boracic acid to one-half pint of
water).
The artificially fed baby does not usually thrive as well as the breast-fed infant. It
does not gain in weight as fast and the teeth are slower in coming. The general
condition of the baby, and a steady, even if slow gain in weight, will indicate whether
the food is agreeing.
Every baby, however, is a law unto itself and it sometimes requires considerable
study to determine what is the best food. Even with the utmost care a cow’s-milk
preparation cannot be made identical with mother’s milk and sometimes an entirely
different mixture must be resorted to.
However, no mother should attempt to experiment on her baby or permit herself to
be misled by the advertisements of so-called Baby Foods. It is only when these are
used in the right proportion and in combination with other ingredients that they can be
suited to the requirements of the infant.
Malt used in place of milk-sugar or cane-sugar will greatly

assist the absorption of fat and decrease the tendency to Milk Modifications
fermentation and colic. It is being extensively used in milk
modifications.
It is best to use the dextrin-maltose preparations that do not contain sodium chlorid,
as it is rarely advisable to add this salt to the infant’s food.
Some physicians have been securing very satisfactory results with a preparation
containing whey. Whey is a thin, watery fluid, looking very much like skimmed milk; its
caloric value is about 300 per quart, 9 per ounce, barely one-half that of whole milk. It
is therefore adapted only to temporary feeding, while its low fat content is of great
value in cases of fat dyspepsia.
To secure the whey, 5 grams (1 teaspoonful) of rennet should be used to each quart
of milk. The mixture must be kept at a temperature of about 100 F. until it separates
into a liquid and a solid portion. It is then strained through cheesecloth. Practically all
the casein is left on the cloth, the fluid being the whey. The curd should be broken up
before straining, in order to obtain, as nearly as possible, the casein. However, about
two-thirds of the milk fats remain in the curd. The whey, besides the whey proteins,
thus contains only about one-third of the fats, but nearly all of the milk-sugar and salts.
The whey still contains the rennet and, to destroy this, the whey must be heated to at
least 140 F. for thirty minutes.
The average composition of whey according to Wachenheim is as follows:
Proteins 0.8 per cent.
Fats 1.0 ” ”
Milk-sugar 4.5 ” ”
Salts 0.7 ” ”
Water 93.0 ” ”
Sometimes sugar is the primary cause of intestinal fermentation, due to the

concentration of the whey and the relative proportions of casein and sugar in the
mixture.
According to Finkelstein and Meyer, to prepare a food which will combat intestinal
fermentation there must be:
A diminution in the quantity of milk-sugar, a diminution of the salts through dilution of
the whey, and an increase in the casein, with varying, and, under certain circumstances,
not inconsiderable amounts of fat. After improvement has begun, an easily assimilable
and consequently little fermentable carbohydrate should be added.
They developed a food to meet these requirements to which they gave the name of
“Eiweissmilch.” This food is prepared as follows:
Heat one quart of whole milk to 100 F.; add four teaspoonfuls of essence of pepsin,
and stir. Let the mixture stand at 100 F. until the curd has formed, then strain. Press
the mass of curd through a rather fine sieve two or three times by the means of a
wooden mallet or spoon. Add one pint of water to the curd during this process. The
mixture should now look like milk and the precipitate must be very finely divided. Add
one pint of buttermilk to this mixture.
Finkelstein and Meyer used buttermilk in the preparation of this food:
(1) Because of the small amount of milk-sugar which it contains;
(2) To obtain the good effects of the lactic acid;
(3) Because buttermilk can be kept for a longer time.
The composition of this food is:
Fat 2.5%
Sugar 1.5%
Protein 3.0%
Salts 0.5%
One quart of this milk contains about 360 calories.

They call attention to the low caloric value of this food and to the necessity of
increasing it as soon as possible by the addition of dextrin-maltose mixtures.
They claim that it is worthy of employment in all the disturbances of nutrition in
infants, which are accompanied by diarrhea, of no matter what kind. The use of this
food has been extended by others to all sorts of conditions including the feeding of
healthy infants and the newly born, and good results are claimed for it.
To use a food low in sugar and salts and high in protein in the fermentative
conditions caused by sugar, is rational. In these conditions the substitution of the
dextrin-maltose mixtures for lactose is also good.
Not all disturbances of nutrition accompanied by diarrhea, however, are due to the
same cause and should not be treated in the same way. No method of feeding can be
applicable to both the sick and the well, nor can all babies be given the same food
without regard to their individual digestive ability.
The main principles of this method of treating intestinal fermentative conditions may
be used and, at the same time, the disadvantages of a routine food may be avoided,
by applying the modification of milk by the percentage method as given by Moise and
Talbot.
To sterilize the milk it should be heated to 212 F., that

Sterilizing and temperature being maintained for ten minutes or longer.
Pasteurizing
Many physicians consider pasteurization the better process. In
this the milk is heated to from 150 to 165 F. and kept at that temperature for from
twenty to thirty minutes. Boiling produces chemical changes, such as converting the
milk-sugar into caramel, etc., while pasteurizing does not.
After pasteurization or sterilization, the milk should be quickly cooled to a
temperature of 40 F. or lower and kept, until used, in bottles corked with non-
absorbent cotton.
Sterilized or pasteurized milk does not keep as well as raw milk probably on account
of the change in the ferments which destroy bacteria; therefore the baby’s milk should
be pasteurized fresh every day.
Freeman’s pasteurizer is a very satisfactory and simple device. It consists of a metal
pail into which is fitted a rack with a separate cylinder for each bottle. This holds just
enough cold water to surround the bottle and keep it from cracking through a sudden
change of temperature. The pail, containing a certain amount of water, is placed on
the stove, the water is heated to the boiling point, the pail being then removed. The
rack of bottles containing the milk preparation, with corks of non-absorbent cotton, is
placed in it and the lid applied. The apparatus is placed away from a direct current of
air for about forty-five minutes.
As the water in the pail cools, the milk in the bottles grows warm until both are at the
same temperature. After forty-five minutes, cold water is turned into the pail to cool the
bottles rapidly. They are then kept on ice until again warmed ready for use.
This is the simplest and best way to pasteurize milk and the expense is small.

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Pastoral Care for the Incarcerated:

Hope Deferred, Humanity Diminished?

Medical Language for Modern Health Care 4th Edition

Total Burn Care 5th Edition David N. Herndon

Total Burn Care 5th Edition David N. Herndon

Braddom’s Rehabilitation Care: A Clinical Handbook

Realism and the Climate Crisis: Hope for Life 1st

Transformational Pastoral Leadership: Ushering in

Meaning Diminished: Toward Metaphysically Modest

Hope on the Range Cindi Madsen

Pastoral Care for the

ISBN 978-3-031-13271-1 ISBN 978-3-031-13272-8 (eBook)

I am grateful for the pastoral forbearance of Reverend Debra Dyson

1 Introduction: Where and How to Start 1

Part I Defining the Issue 19

2 Modern Mass Incarceration: Can it Be Humanised? 21

Part II Describing the Context 71

4 Entering Lived Experience: From Theory to Reality 73

5 Tales From the Shadow of Despair103

Part III Reflecting on Practice 139

6 Seeking Humanity and Hope141

7 A Pastoral Response169

Part IV Acting Compassionately 197

8 Custodial Compassion: A Pastoral Paradox199

Appendix: Remaining Found Poems249

Fig. 1.1 The pastoral cycle (Adapted—author’s design) 6

Introduction: Where and How to Start

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

lived experience of those in my care and custody so as to better serve

education, training and resettlement opportunities to over a thousand

approach to my theological subject (ecclesiology) which I studied in a par-

Practical Theology and the Pastoral Cycle

hermeneutical circle of ideological critique and theological reflection

Fig. 1.1 The pastoral

I was confident I had such a passion and a heuristic overarching

Methods in Practical Theology

The Living Human Document

human subject in theology, in contrast to the abstract and systematic forms

Constructive Narrative Theology

Canonical Narrative Theology

In Chap. 7, I have chosen ‘the Good Shepherd’ as a narrative theme

matters. But this is done in the service of formulating a pastoral response

people, consisting of some who have pre-existing vulnerabilities, should

I propose is that of humane relationship-based regard. I was conscious

specific texture of indeterminately sentenced lives. Finally, this approach

Fig. 1.2 Life as a Film movie style poster—ID17

Found Poem: The Illusion of Time (ID17)

didn’t have nobody

———. 2017. Humanising Incarceration: A Prison Chaplain’s Response to ‘a

Thompson, Judith, Stephen Pattison, and Ross Thompson. 2008. The

Defining the Issue

Modern Mass Incarceration: Can it

We carry within us the power to bless and to redeem…We were the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 21

The Purpose of Incarceration: A Swinging Pendulum

1. Retribution: Wrongdoing should be punished according to the

3. Deterrence: Sentences should have enough punitive weight to deter

Incarceration: Modern and Mass

be done covertly, thereby leaving them unsure of who would be being

A House of Penance: The Penitentiary

The Industrialisation of Carceral Space

1. The management of prison establishments

The privatisation of some prison provision has added to the discomfort

The making of money from the punishment of crime is nothing new. As

1 Introduction: Where and How to Start 1

Part I Defining the Issue 19

2 Modern Mass Incarceration: Can it Be Humanised? 21

Part II Describing the Context 71

4 Entering Lived Experience: From Theory to Reality 73

5 Tales From the Shadow of Despair103

Part III Reflecting on Practice 139

6 Seeking Humanity and Hope141

7 A Pastoral Response169

Part IV Acting Compassionately 197

8 Custodial Compassion: A Pastoral Paradox199

Appendix: Remaining Found Poems249

Fig. 1.1 The pastoral cycle (Adapted—author’s design) 6

amongst described themselves as the ‘black sheep’ of their otherwise law-