Prison Department Research Articles

Report on the Work of the Prison Department 1978

Report on the Work of the Prison Department 1978

Report on the Work of the Prison Department 1978

Report on the Work of the Prison Department 1978

Report on the Work of the Prison Department 1977

Report on the Work of the Prison Department 1977

The law and the mentally abnormal offender in England and Wales

The compulsory powers which mental health professionals may exercise in respect of mentally abnormal offenders have been largely governed during the past 20 years in England and Wales by the Mental Health Act 1959. This Act is now under review and Her Majesty’s Government has issued a White Paper (H. M. Gov’t 1978) setting out the changes it proposes to make as soon as Parliamentary time can be found. The Act has a special section, Part V, which concerns admission to hospital following criminal court proceedings, the Home Secretary’s powers with regard to restricted patients, and the transfer of mentally disordered prisoners to hospital. There is general agreement that this aspect of the Mental Health Act is not working very well; indeed as the recent White Paper submitted by the Government to Parliament in preparation for a new Mental Health Act admits, “the last ten years has seen a steady decline in the number of offenders compulsorily admitted to hospital.” In 1966, 1440 hospital orders were made by courts under Section 60 of the Mental Health Act, whereas in 1976 there were only 924. There has been disquiet about the difficulties confronting the offender patient for some years. The Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Security jointly set up a special committeee to examine the problems confronting the mentally abnormal offender as far back as 1972: this committee (usually known as the Butler Committee) reported in 1975. Since then continuous discussions have taken place within the medical, nursing, and social work professions. Another important contribution to the debate has been A Human Condition Volume 2 (Gostin, 1977) published by the National Association for Mental Health (MIND). More recently the Prison Department, and in particular the Prison Medical Service have begun to complain about the increasing burden which they believe is being laid at their doorstep because of the inability of the National Health +-vice to cope with this important group of patients [Home Office, 1976). The Government White Paper acknowledges the problem and relates it in part to an increasing reluctance to admit offender patients to local hospitals. They believe that there are several reasons for this reluctance, in particular the continuing move away from the concept of long term custodial care of patients to a more open therapeutic environment in which the vast majority of patients admitted are informal and short stay. The White Paper expresses the

Report on the Work of the Prison Department 1977 Home Office

Report on the Work of the Prison Department 1977 Home Office

Report on the Work of the Prison Department

Report on the Work of the Prison Department

Report on the Work of the Prison Department. Statistical Tables

It is a century since the Prison Act placed a statutory obligation on the Prison Commissioners to present an annual report to the Secretary of State and Parliament; in recent years numerical facts relating to the prison population have been published in a separate volume of Statistical Tables. Together these volumes provide an account of the administration of the penal system during the previous year. To those who are familiar with bureaucratic reticence in these matters the reports provide welcome information: for others who work in the prison service, normally constrained by the Offical Secrets Acts (1911 and 1920), the reports act as a valuable mouthpiece.

A planning system for the British Prison Department

The Prison Department of the Home Office contains a very wide variety of executive, administrative and research functions and operates in a rapidly changing environment. After its reorganization in 1969 by a team of management consultants and Civil Service officials, the authors were given the problem of designing a long range planning system for it. They based this system on the existing 5-year Public Expenditure Survey arrangements and started with a simple participative system in which a planning unit provided functional units with the major policy assumptions on which they could base their programmes and bids for funds. As the information base is improved, the authors see the system as providing a framework for accountable management.

Work—Release—a Study of Correctional Reform

Data on work-release prisoners are used to illustrate a concep tion of correctional reform as a process of accommodations and new relationships among groups. Reform stimulated by the correctional agency is viewed as preferable to reform externally induced. In North Carolina, changes in the economic base of the Prison Department motivated other agencies to support work- release as a new strategy. Although opportunism was prominent in the interest, the introduction of work-release initiated a series of accommodations resulting in changes that promise to be genuine reform. New relationships have emerged among the prisons, the parole board, the courts, and private employers. Within the prison, new relationships between staff and inmates support the growth of a motivational system conducive to rehabilitation. Current limitations of the North Carolina pro gram, successful when measured against its original goals, in clude the restricted place of work-release within the labor-force structure of the state. Further development of the work-release concept requires extension of vocational training and other rehabilitation programs in prison to broaden the job skills of prisoners as candidates for work-release.

GROUPS AND THE ABILITY TO COMMUNICATE

Journal Article GROUPS AND THE ABILITY TO COMMUNICATE Get access P. H. SHAPLAND P. H. SHAPLAND * MA., Dip.Psych., Senior Psychologist, H.M. Prison, Birmingham. The views expressed in this note are the writer's own and do not necessarily represent those of the Prison Department Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 7, Issue 4, October 1967, Pages 404–407, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjc.a049067 Published: 01 October 1967

In‐Service Training: A Key to Correctional Progress

CriminologyVolume 4, Issue 3 p. 16-26 In-Service Training: A Key to Correctional Progress Elmer H. Johnson Ph.D., Elmer H. Johnson Ph.D. Elmer H. Johnson is Professor of Sociology and Assistant Director of the Center for the Study of Crime, Delinquency, and Corrections. Southern Illinois University. He was Assistant Director of the North Carolina Prison Department, 1958–1960.Search for more papers by this author Elmer H. Johnson Ph.D., Elmer H. Johnson Ph.D. Elmer H. Johnson is Professor of Sociology and Assistant Director of the Center for the Study of Crime, Delinquency, and Corrections. Southern Illinois University. He was Assistant Director of the North Carolina Prison Department, 1958–1960.Search for more papers by this author First published: November 1966 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1966.tb00154.xCitations: 1AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume4, Issue3November 1966Pages 16-26 RelatedInformation

The Paradox of Penal Detention

Journal Article The Paradox of Penal Detention Get access R. D. Fairn R. D. Fairn Assistant Under-Secretary of State in the Prison Department of the Home Office Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Current Legal Problems, Volume 18, Issue 1, 1965, Pages 13–19, https://doi.org/10.1093/clp/18.1.13 Published: 01 December 1965

The Professional in Correction: Status and Prospects

The intricacies of criminal etiology and prison management require the level of knowledge, skills, and ethics associated with professionalism as a sociological concept. The criteria of the professions are applied to the correctional service to demonstrate this. To assess the degree of professionalization found among adult prisons, the ratio of prisoners per staff member is employed for various types of staff for the major regions. Highly irregular patterns and a generally low level of professionalization are revealed. The major obstacles to further professionalization include the lack of psychological unity among the various classes of personnel in corrections and the inadequacy of training programs. M OTIVATIONS behind the frequent advocacy of professionalization of the --M.. v correctional services include the desire to improve the quality of administration and treatment, promotion of job tenure and working conditions of existing personnel, and raising of * Read at annual meeting of Southern Sociological Society, April 1961, this paper was developed in conjunction with a special project of the North Carolina Prison Department supported by Grant OM-397 from the National Institute of Mental Health, Public Health

Sociology of Confinement: Assimilation and the Prison "Rat"

The author is Assistant Director of Prisons, North Carolina Prison Department. Prior to assuming this position, he was Associate Professor of Sociology, North Carolina State College, Raleigh. In this article, Dr. Johnson reports on a recent study of fifty prison rats, i.e., prisoners who were at odds with their fellow inmates, usually because of a willingness to give information to prison officials in return for personal advantage. The prisoners studied are first divided into a number of sub-groups under two general headings-assimilated rats and unassimilated rats. Then, by means of detailing the infraction records of those involved, Dr. Johnson attempts to provide a rough index to the response of the various categories of rats to their assigned roles and to the social environment of confinement.-EDITOR.

CRIMINOLOGY AND PENOLOGY. By Richard R. Korn and Lloyd W. McCorkle. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1959. 660 pp. $6.50

Journal Article Criminology and Penology. By Richard R. Korn and Lloyd W. McCorkle. New York: Henry Holt and Company, Inc., 1959. 660 pp. $6.50 Get access Elmer H. Johnson Elmer H. Johnson North Carolina Prison Department Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Social Forces, Volume 38, Issue 2, December 1959, Pages 180–181, https://doi.org/10.2307/2573958 Published: 01 December 1959

THE SCOTTISH CRIMINAL STATISTICS, 1929 AND THE REPORT OF THE PRISONS DEPARTMENT FOR SCOTLAND, 1930

The Howard Journal of Criminal JusticeVolume 3, Issue 2 p. 57-57 THE SCOTTISH CRIMINAL STATISTICS, 1929 AND THE REPORT OF THE PRISONS DEPARTMENT FOR SCOTLAND, 1930 Mary Paterson J.P., Mary Paterson J.P.Search for more papers by this author Mary Paterson J.P., Mary Paterson J.P.Search for more papers by this author First published: September 1931 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2311.1931.tb01215.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume3, Issue2September 1931Pages 57-57 RelatedInformation