crisis in prison

Evidence for a crisis has occurred many times within these 30 years. The past few years has seen the prison system without a single spare cell for new inmates. Prison officers being jailed for planning attacks on inmates. The appalling racist murder of Zahid Mubarek in 2000 who was killed by an inmate, The closure of Shrewsbury prison even though it was described as a "high-performing prison". http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-22559301. As well as the riots which have occurred in the privatised prison of .......This is just to name a few of the terrible events which have contributed to the crisis within the past 30 years. The penal system is struggling already and the latest figures suggest that the prison population is going to scale even higher....... STATS

But when does a crisis become normality? This crisis has been ongoing for 30 years. Once said the penal system has been ‘in perpetual state of crisis since the Gladstone committee report of 11895’ (Fitzgerald and Sim 1982;3). The penal system is not in a crisis in which it will collapse however there are two elements within the penal system which would suggest a crisis. These have been acknowledged by Terence Morris (1989:125) .......

The orthodox account is seen as the most common-sensical analysis which aims to explain the reasons behind the crisis, looking at problems within the penal system. The orthodox account is easily summarised by a quote from the article ‘why prisons may explode’ (Humphry and May 1977) ‘explosive problems remain in many of Britain’s prisons – a higher number of lifers... who have nothing left to lose; overcrowding which forces men to sleep three to a cell and understaffing which weakens security. Prisons, too, are forced to handle ...

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... been leaked to disclose the problems in prisons. Fitzgerald and Sim see this as a crisis in itself that this information has been kept a secret and dispelling this secrecy can only aggravate the crisis. If knowledge is power then there is a threat that the prison system is under threat of getting deeper within this crisis, as the lose control and knowledge of the information about itself.

On the other hand there has been seen to be many protests within prisons due to the conditions, the scene of prisoners on the prison roof is an occurrence which has been seen by all. This greater visibility helps prisoners get better treatment within prisons this shows visibility rather than secrecy helps solve the crisis.

The problem with secrecy is that information leaked is often illegitimate damaging the legitimacy of prisons

The crisis of legitimacy

Responses to the crisis