Victorian Prison Lives

Philip Priestley

mar 2012 · Random House

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Victorian Prison Lives is the first account of the process of imprisionment in England between 1830 and 1914 to be drawn largely from the writings of prisoners themselves. The period was in some ways one of great change, beginning with an astonishing penitentiary experiement when prisons were seen as moral hospitals. But this approach eventually gave way to the idea of penal servitude and created a legacy of harshness and suffering still preserved in the reputations of Portland Chatham and Dartmoor. It was only towards the end of the period that the concept of modern prison administration began to emerge. But while statutary changes where taking place there was an underlying continuity. This is examined in a series of chapters on every aspect of prison life - from admission procedure, fellow prisoners and the nature of hard labour, diet and discipline to the process of release, which for a long-term prisioner could be as daunting as entry into prison.

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Philip Priestly has worked for more than thirty years in and around the English criminal justice system - campaigning for victims' right, drawing attention to inequalities in sentencing, and advocating effective alternatives to prison. He is the author or co-author of twelve books, including Community of Scapegoats (1980), Offending Behaviour (1985) and Jail Journeys (1990). He has made thirty broadcast documentaries, including a BAFTA- nominated 'Cutting Edge' on neighbours' quarrels, and a study of victim-offender mediation which won a Royal Television Society award. In 1997, for a series on archaeology, he commissioned the research which established a 9,000-year-old DNA link between the skeleton of 'Cheddar Man' and Adrian Targett, a local history teacher.