Prisons - new material (22)
01 December 1997
Curfew orders with electronic monitoring: an evaluation of the first twelve months of the trials in Greater Manchester Norfolk and Berkshire 1995-1996 George Mair & Ed Mortimer. Research Study 163 (Home Office Research and Statistics Directorate) 1996, pp50. This report concludes that "curfew orders with electronic monitoring can work"; it also notes that a quarter of the participants breached their curfew orders. Home Office minister, Baroness Blatch has commented that "tagging can be a useful community sentence" but internal Home Office documents obtained by the Guardian newspaper suggest more than 15 000 offenders would need to be tagged at any one time for it to be profitable for the private security companies running the scheme.
A hole in the truth? Lawrence Donegan. Guardian 30.1.97. On the Whitemoor prison escape - in which five IRA men escaped from the maximum security prison in 1994 - and the collapse of the trial to investigate it. Defence counsel Michael Mansfield questions the Woodcock report on the escape and hints at security service involvement in the breakout based on missing video evidence and the death and disappearance of two key witnesses.
Prison Privatisation Report International. Prison Reform Trust No. 6 (January) 1997. This issue looks at the world-wide increase in prison populations and discusses the prospects of an expansion of privately run prisons. It includes brief reports from the US, Australia and the UK.
Prison Watch press release 190 (4.2.97.). This press release covers the suicide of Andrew Smith who was found hanging at HMP Armley Leeds West Yorkshire. It calls for the Chief Inspector of Prisons to investigate the conditions at Armley prison.
Forsaken on Romeo Block Janice Galloway. Guardian weekend 8.2.97. pp20-29. This disturbing piece looks at HMP Cornton Vale, Scotland's only women's prison where six young women have been found hanging in their cells in the past 18 months.
Developments in the use of prisons. Series of articles on this theme in European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research vol 4 no 3. Includes: Incarceration rates: Europe versus USA Andr‚ Kuhn; The American Experiment: crime reduction through prison growth Kevin R Reitz; Controlling prison population size, Michael Tonry; Private prisons: contexts performance and issues, Mick Ryan.
Parliamentary debates
Prisons (Alcohol Testing) Bill Commons 13.12.96. cols. 561-578<