3 JUNE 1938, Page 20

PRISONS WITHOUT WALLS [To the Editor of TIM SPECTATOR]

SIR,—The article by B. L. Jacot gave a glowing account of the work being done at Holloway. No one who knows anything of the attitude of the Holloway authorities will question the fact that they are whole-heartedly anxious to give the prisoners submitted to their care the best possible chance of rehabilita- tion. But the personal factor is not the only one to be considered. It is Holloway itself that is the chief stumbling block in the way of success.

The prison authorities in Holloway, and elsewhere, are faced with the impossible task of educating and reforming prisoners in buildings that were constructed for repression and a system of isolation. It is not chance that the most successful institutions in our penal system are the Wakefield Prison Camp, the North Sea Borstal Camp and the Lowdham Grange Borstal Institution, the three places where the Prison Commissioners have broken away from the old prison buildings. In the fortress type of prison built on the cellular system it is impossible to get proper accommodation for workrooms and classrooms, to get away from the morbid emotional results of stone walls and barred gates or to give conditions of life that are sufficiently free and natural to make it possible to train the prisoners for the free and natural life outside the walls.

Speaking in the debate on the Supplementary Vote for the Home Office, the Home Secretary recently said : " It is one of the most interesting and satisfactory features of modem penal administration that you can so often succeed, indeed you can so often better succeed, without the high walls and mediaeval appearances of the older prisons." The Prison Commissioners have begun on a small scale to put that belief into practice as far as men and lads are concerned. Not even a beginning has been made in the case of women prisoners, though the experience of the United States and other countries has shown what can be done in the unwalled prison on the cottage system with women offenders.

It is all very well to praise Holloway by what are the results of our system of dealing with women prisoners. Omitting the women convicted of drunkenness, no fewer than 46 per cent. of the women prisoners received on conviction in 1936 had served previous sentences. Is this so much to boast of ?

As for the women drunkards, the writer of the article assumes that nothing can be done for them. That is certainly true of the chronic alcoholic of long-standing. But there is always a beginning to their history and It is by no means so clear that nothing could be done in the early stages. The late Governor of Holloway, with his great experience of the woman drunkard first at the Aylesbury Inebriates Home and then at Holloway, was convinced that some at least would have been amenable to treatment in the early stages. That was also the view of Dr. Mary Gordon, who had been Inspector of Prisons and Assistant Inspector of State and Certified Inebriate Reforma- tories. But no serious attempt to deal with the problem has ever been made in this country, since the Inebriates Act of 1898 only provided for detention in special homes and did nothing to treat the people sent there.

Until something is done for the woman inebriate, and until we have provided open prisons where a vigorous and healthy life is possible for the ordinary woman prisoner, it will remain impossible to maintain that our treatment of the woman offender has kept pace with the best of modern penal thought.—

I am, &c., WINIFRED A. ELKIN,

Hon. Press Secretary, The Howard League for Penal Reform.

Parliament Mansions, Orchard Street, Victoria Street, London, S.W.r.