18 OCTOBER 1930, Page 9

The Holloway " Zoo "

By G. D. TURNER.

ACCORDING to reports in the Press, the National Council of Women, in conference at Portsmouth last week, described Holloway Prison as an " obsolete zoo." Should this come to the notice of the women in Holloway they arc quite capable of retorting that at any rate it is not " a blinking parrot-house." Many of its habitue& have a real affection for this refuge from temptation. It is sad to reflect that for some of London's population the only protection from the bottle is the " jug."

The Portsmouth conference is stated to have con- demned the present system of imprisonment for women and to have advocated an experimental institution on the lines of cottage homes with facilities for domestic training and for outdoor work. This suggestion sounds very attractive, but can scarcely have been based on a study of the female prison population as it is at present consti- tuted. Presumably a training of at least six months in such an institution would be necessary to make it effective. The late Home Secretary pointed out that of some 8,000 women sentenced to imprisonment (excluding the few sent to penal servitude) in a year, less than 150 actually serve six months. Many of that number would require no such training as could be provided in a cottage home and still more would have to be kept in greater security than such a home would afford. As things stand at present, the prisoners available throughout the whole country for such an experimental institution would be extremely few and too heterogeneous to be brought within a single system.

Although Holloway is the only women's prison in the south-east of England and receives prisoners from sixteen counties, the average population is only three hundred. The total number received into Holloway in a year is between three and four thousand. These are not all different women. Many of them appear over and over again, as often as ten or fifteen times in twelve months. The great majority, for drunkenness and other petty offences, receive short sentences which apparently have no deterrent effect and cannot be given reformative value. Time is essential to any work of reclamation. The reformative aspect of prison administration would be greatly improved if the petty offender could be dealt with elsewhere. The National Council of Women will do a great service to penal reform if it can evolve practical alternatives to imprisonment for minor delinquents.

Not only was the system of imprisonment for women condemned at the Portsmouth conference, but Holloway was described as " obsolete." It is, admittedly, far from an ideal building for the purpose of a women's prison. To begin with, it is much too large. Constructed about 1850 to house over 900 prisoners, it now contains about a third of that number. It shares with most other prisons in this country the disadvantage that it was built at a period when penal ideas, though advanced for the time, were very different from those of to-day, and, unfortu- nately, it was built to last. Early Victorian penologists held no pronounced views on the advantages of space, light and air, but were very definitely convinced that solitary confinement was the main essential in a sound penal system and stamped their ideas in abiding stone and iron. Holloway, as a building, is seen at great disad- vantage in comparison with modern women's prisons in America or on the Continent. It is not only our prisons that suffer by comparison. Our coal-mines and factories are in construction often greatly inferior to those of other countries because at one time we were so far ahead of them. Everyone will agree that whatever may be the sound policy in regard to our industrial plant, this is hardly the right moment to pull down our prisons and build better ones. We have to do the best, for the time being, with the buildings we possess, and it is becoming more and more recognized that, important as the material equipment of a prison is, it is secondary to the question of staff. A good staff with poor equipment is of far greater value than a poor staff with every material advantage.

There is no prison in England so adequately staffed as Holloway, and it is doubtful if any women's prison in the world can compare with it. There are over thirty trained nurses on the hospital staff alone. There are two women medical officers and the Governor is a doctor. The rest of the staff comprises some eighty female and twenty male officers, these last being employed mainly in con- nexion with works and stores. In all some one hundred and forty persons are employed for a prison population of three hundred. This is about three times as many as would be required in a men's prison with the same population.

One reason for this large staff is that half the population is always under hospital care or treatment. This is a very significant fact and indicates some of the difficult sides of the problem at Holloway. Another reason is that a great deal of the time of the staff is spent in conducting trial and remand prisoners to and from courts in a very large area. Nevertheless, the staff is generous and on the whole extremely competent.

Few prisons in this country, and, none elsewhere, can compare with Holloway in the amount and quality of the co-operation by voluntary workers with the staff in reformative effort. There is an extremely well- organized Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society with an income and expenditure of over three thousand pounds per annum. Every woman with a sentence of fourteen days or over is visited regularly, in most cases weekly, by the Visitor assigned to her, who reports on her cases and makes a recommendation of assistance to the sub- committee of the society which meets weekly. Every care is taken that adequate assistance is given to those who need and desire it. There are over thirty ladies engaged in this voluntary work of visiting. No official system of studying and examining prisoners could hope to obtain such good results as are secured by this friendly, sympathetic and entirely unofficial contact. This system of voluntary visitation is peculiarly English ; no other country has succeeded in developing it to anything like the same extent or with the same success.

The programme of evening classes at Holloway compares very favourably with that at even the best of male prisons. There are over twenty voluntary teachers attending weekly. The subjects taught include cooking, housewifery, child welfare, home ' nursing, gardening, and a variety of handicrafts. Such practical subjects are suited to the character of the constantly changing population, but intellectual needs are not neglected and there are classes in drama, citizenship and current events. Every prisoner serving more than a month is eligible to attend these classes. Particular attention is given to young prisoners, who have their own allotment gardens, do Swedish drill, take part in Morris dancing and play net-ball.

The system of imprisonment may become obsolete, it already shows signs of obsolescence, but it is hardly fair to characterize as obsolete the effort that is being made by a fine staff and a splendid band of voluntary workers at Holloway to reclaim the women that are sent within its walls.