NCJ Number
102481
Date Published
1985
Length
9 pages
Annotation
Analyses are presented of the implications of some of the recommendations of the Home Office Control Review Committee for prisoners' rights.
Abstract
While this report offers a sensitive and imaginative response to control problems in the long-term prison system in England, exception is taken to a number of the report's specific proposals. The suggestion that long-term inmates should spend longer confinements in local prisons could contribute to prison overcrowding and to the transfer of short-term and remand prisoners to more distant facilities. While proposed sentence planning has benefits, categorization, appeal, and review procedures should be instituted to protect prisoner's rights. Further, while administrative segregation of some inmates may be necessary, an effective disciplinary process acceptable to staff and inmates can minimize this necessity. In addition, monitoring of special control units for troublesome inmates appears warranted to prevent abuses. The proposed relaxation of censorship (mail and telephone) for lower security prisoners should be extended to higher security institutions as well. Finally, the proposed staff training in personal restraint may actually exacerbate tense situations in which a breakdown in control is threatened.