The Happy Prisoner Talking of the new housing programme for
prisons, in the House on Monday Sir Samuel Hoare said that on a site already secured two distinct institutions would be accom- modated—the women's prison to take the place of Holloway and the girls' Borstal—and it was desired to make the new prison as little like the old type of prison as possible. There would be a number of semi-detached houses, with kitchen equipment, medical unit, chapel, workrooms, recreational and educational facilities, a library, and "a very important item in the site would be gardens." Later in the debate the Home Secretary was asked about " smashings-up " at the Girls' Borstal Institution at Aylesbury, and in reply he expressed the hope that "when the girls are in this new country institution, with plenty of outdoor life and a lot of exercise—they are going to have playing fields and a swimming bath—they will get so tired during the day that they will be disinclined to use their energies for these objects in the evening when they get back to the institution." Such a programme raises some inevitable questions. It is all to the good to make prison reformative and not merely deter- rent, but to rely solely on loss of liberty to exert deterrent effect, and give convicted prisoners amenities which they could never hope to enjoy when leading an honest life at home, is going, if not too far, quite definitely far enough.
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