Book Reviews : The English Prison Officer since 1850: A study in conflict J. E. Thomas Routledge and Kegan Paul. £3.00

Abstract

£3.00. Dr Thomas has researched his way patiently through a number of primary and secondary sources and the result is a very useful piece of historical writing about the prison system. He draws also upon his first-hand knowledge.As he says, almost all accounts of prisons are either descriptive or deal with the two themes of prisoners and penal reform. There has been no account of the way the English prison staff structure has evolved or of prison as an organisational entity, and he fills this gap.A central theme is that the prison officer became alienated as a result of confusion over the primary task of prison and that he has been re-established in his custodial role by the Mountbatten Report.Such a role he suggests cannot be combined with a reformative one. If the main task of a prison is to contain and control -and the Home Secretary in a recent speech made it clear that in his view it was-then the weight of responsibility for carrying this out is on the basic grade prison officer.This work is about much more than the role of the prison officer. Issues are raised that are urgently in the mind, of those concerned about prisons and their place in society. The book ends with a discussion on the need to face and solve the problems of introducing reformative measures into the prison system, and the difficulties that must be expected by the post-Mountbatten policy of maximum security.