Crime and Punishment / 1900-present
Crime and Punishment: Modern Prisons
Prison became the main punishment for serious crime, but many people still question whether it works.
What To Remember
- Since 1900, prison has been the main punishment for serious crime, replacing older punishments such as execution and transportation.
- Modern prison policy increasingly aimed at reform through better conditions, education and open prisons.
- Prison remained controversial because of cost, overcrowding and high reoffending.
Changing purpose
In the early modern period, prisons were often holding places before trial or punishment.
By the modern period, imprisonment itself had become the usual punishment for serious offenders.
From 1902, prisons moved away from the separate system, and from 1922 food, heating, lighting, visits and education improved.
Reform ideas
After 1922, reformers increasingly argued that poverty and environment helped cause crime.
That encouraged education, more humane treatment and the abolition of solitary confinement as a normal punishment.
The first open prison in 1933 showed a more trusting approach: prisoners could leave to work and return later.
Limits of prison
The workbook estimates that it cost about 40,000 pounds a year to keep someone in prison and that the UK prison population was about 90,000 by 2015.
High reoffending meant prison did not always reform criminals.
For a balanced answer, argue that modern prisons changed in purpose but did not fully solve the problem of crime.
Revision Prompt
Why do some people question modern prisons?