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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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
You would not have enjoyed spending time in a Victorian prison, as Philip Priestley's beautifully written and genuinely terrifying study demonstrates. Synthesizing a wide range of actual individual experiences, Priestly takes us through all the stages of incarceration, from "The Cell" and "The Daily Round" to "Discipline", "The Scaffold"' (gulp) and, for those lucky enough to make it, "Release". The accounts he builds on range from the prison autobiographies of celebrated forgers like Austin Bidwell to accounts written under shamefaced pseudonyms (so potent was the stigma), such as One-Who-Has-Suffered. And suffer they did; it was a suffering made worse by the fact that it was inflicted by the self-righteous in the name of justice. There is a point to Priestley's meticulously gathered, vividly presented material: an antiprison statement. He is never preachy about this, but in an elegant preface, he notes how ineffective prisons are at reducing criminal behavior. He thinks that the prison as idea and reality could vanish in the near future. This is an arresting thought; as he says, "the lunatic asylum and the workhouse, institutional contemporaries of the penitentiary, have both disappeared into historical oblivion. They sprang from the same sources of Enlightenment thought, were found not to work, and have been abandoned." Could prisons go the same way? --Adam Roberts, Amazon.co.uk
About the Author
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.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Glimpse behing bars,
By
This review is from: Victorian Prison Lives: English Prison Biography, 1830-1914 (Hardcover)
Priestly shows the workings of prisons in the nineteenth century through the letters, diaries, and memoirs of the people actually involved. While the facts are not revolutionary, he brings such a personal connection to the details that make them alive and memorable in ways that others do not.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Book Nitty-Gritty,
By Theseus "theseus" (US of A) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Victorian Prison Lives: English Prison Biography, 1830-1914 (Hardcover)
Hardback first published in the UK by Methuen in 1985.
Bound in black linen cloth with silver type. Dustjacket. 311 pp on heavy stock with b&w illustrations. Notes at the end of each chapter, 2 appendices, index, and a 9 p Bibliography.
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