NCJ Number
149090
Journal
Criminologist Volume: 17 Issue: 2 Dated: (Summer 1993) Pages: 110-119
Date Published
1993
Length
10 pages
Annotation
This article quotes selections from the autobiography of Colonel C.E.F. Rich, who retired as governor of Great Britain's Wandsworth prison in 1932, to document his philosophy of prison management.
Abstract
Many of the issues addressed by Colonel Rich still confront corrections policymakers and reformers, such as corporal punishment, capital punishment, inmate discipline, and inmate riots. Two themes permeate Colonel Rich's thinking and recur in his writing. One theme is his frustration with his supervisors, whom he deems to be idealists who do not understand the practicalities of running a prison and managing criminals. His supervisors' primary weakness, as viewed by Colonel Rich, was their tendency to relax inmate discipline and cater to inmate complaints. Colonel Rich's second theme is that most of the ills in society in general and prison in particular can be traced to a diminution in the standards of discipline that give high priority to work and behavior appropriate to one's social position. In keeping with these two themes, Colonel Rich's style of prison management was a combination of "strict military discipline" and "school spirit and the teaching of good manners." His concept of rehabilitation was to develop a "sportsman," that is, "someone who can be depended on to play the game, to own up when he is wrong, to take his punishment like a man and to play for the side and not himself." He favored corporal punishment (whippings) and humane capital punishment (a carefully designed hanging). 1 reference