Modern British Prison System

The English Criminal Justice Act, 1982 envisages a scheme of liberalised parole system to ease the pressure of prison population. The mounting pressure on prisons in England and Wales is evinced by the fact that there were more than 45,000 inmates in prisons in July, 1981 with the result freedom of movement of prisoners in many prisons had been drastically reduced. Some prisoners on remand had to be housed even in police station garages.

To cope up with the situation, it was proposed to release prisoners on licence after serving one-third of the sentence thus, removing the discretion of Parole Board. The Parole Board, however, did not favour such a time-bound release of prisoners and suggested that it should be limited to short term sentences.

This proposal was, however, rejected by the British Parliament while discussing the Criminal Justice Bill in 1982 and partially suspended sentence was accepted as an alternative to this proposal as it would make parole a more constructive measure because the minimum period under the Act is twelve months or one third of the sentence, whichever is longer. Thus, deduction of minimum period for release on parole brought greater number of prisoners into the parole scheme thereby reducing the pressure on prison administration.

The salient features of the present prison system in Britain may be summarised as follows:—

1. The prisoners are classified into different categories through Group therapy method.

2. The inmates are provided vocational training inside the prison for their physical, moral and mental upliftment.

3. Reformation of the prisoner is sought within the community itself.

4. After the prisoner’s release from the prison, his rehabilitation and socialisation is entrusted to after care institutions or voluntary social service organisations.

5. Prisons are treated as minimum security institutions wherein basic rights of prisoners should be duly recognised.