Status
Available
Publication
London ; New York : Methuen, 1985.
Description
This is an account of the process of imprisonment in England between 1930 and 1914, drawn largely from the writings of the prisoners themselves. The period was one of great change, where the idea of prisons as moral hospitals gave way to the idea of penal servitude and its legacy of harshness.
User reviews
LibraryThing member AlexTheHunn
Priestly shows the workings of prisons in the nineteent century through the letters, diaries, and memoirs of the people actually involved. While the facts are not revolutionary, he brings such a personal connection to the details that make them alive and memorable in ways that others do not.