Roy D. King – författare

Prisons occupy a central position in the criminal justice system of all the developed nations. State controlled, and now increasingly privately run though state regulated, prisons are actually and symbolically the organs of state power which are used to punish deviant members of society. Much is known about prisons, their administration, their effectiveness and their problems. Particularly since the crisis in British prisons began to become apparent during the late 1980s prisons haave become the focus of much attention from researchers, policy makers and government. More is known now than at any time in the past about how prisons work and how prisoners view their experiences of incarceration. However little attention has been given to comparing and contrasting prison systems in different countries. This collection does just that, bringing together leading prison scholars from Italy, Australia, the US, and the UK to produce a set of essays which offer a broad view of recent developments in imprisonment theory and practice. The subject of privately run prisons feature in two of the essays while the crisis in prisons feature in two of the essays while the crisis in prisons in several countries is viewed critically in two others. Other important topics examined are Russian prisons after Perestroika, human rights and prisons in Europe, as well as women in prisons and racial disproportion in US prisons. This is a high-quality collection of up-to-date essays which will be required reading for anyone interested in prisons and the process of criminal justice.Contributors: Richard Sparks, Douglas C. McDonald, Massimo Pavarini, Roy D. King, Franklin E. Zimring, Gordon Hawkins, Michael Tonry, Ken Pease, Pat Carlen, Rod Morgan, Malcolm Evans, Mike Maguire

Through a comprehensive analysis of legislative and organisational changes and interviews with all the key players, The Honest Politician’s Guide to Prisons and Probation provides an authoritative account of the crisis which has gradually engulfed the prison and probation services since 1991. Setting out the nature and extent of the crisis, King and Willmott show how the Woolf agenda was overridden in a process of political churn, through explorations of the Conservative government until 1997, New Labour from 1997 to 2010 and the Coalition and Conservative governments since 2010. Uniquely, interviews with all surviving Home Secretaries and Justice Secretaries of the period include insightful and candid reflections upon their time in office, and how they saw the future. Views from both inside and outside the prisons and probation services are also explored, based on interviews with the Director Generals of the Prison Service and of the new National Probation Service, Chief Inspectors of Prisons and Probation and the four most recent Lord Chief Justices, including Lord Woolf himself. Concluding by drawing on this collective wisdom, King and Willmott set out what is needed for an effective and sustainable future. It is essential reading not just for those in Westminster, but also for practitioners in criminal justice, advocacy organisations, thinktanks and scholars and students in Criminology, Criminal Justice, British Politics and Public Policy.

Through a comprehensive analysis of legislative and organisational changes and interviews with all the key players, The Honest Politician’s Guide to Prisons and Probation provides an authoritative account of the crisis which has gradually engulfed the prison and probation services since 1991. Setting out the nature and extent of the crisis, King and Willmott show how the Woolf agenda was overridden in a process of political churn, through explorations of the Conservative government until 1997, New Labour from 1997 to 2010 and the Coalition and Conservative governments since 2010. Uniquely, interviews with all surviving Home Secretaries and Justice Secretaries of the period include insightful and candid reflections upon their time in office, and how they saw the future. Views from both inside and outside the prisons and probation services are also explored, based on interviews with the Director Generals of the Prison Service and of the new National Probation Service, Chief Inspectors of Prisons and Probation and the four most recent Lord Chief Justices, including Lord Woolf himself. Concluding by drawing on this collective wisdom, King and Willmott set out what is needed for an effective and sustainable future. It is essential reading not just for those in Westminster, but also for practitioners in criminal justice, advocacy organisations, thinktanks and scholars and students in Criminology, Criminal Justice, British Politics and Public Policy.

Originally published in 1977, Albany: Birth of a Prison - End of an Era attempts to document and analyse some of the changes which happened in the first five and a half years of the prison’s opening and as far as possible account for them. Albany was planned and built as a medium-security establishment but the growth in the prison population meant it ended up, in part, as a maximum-security unit. At the time the prison was notorious, after a stormy series of incidents culminated in an alleged mass escape attempt and a riot, it had become known as the ‘jail of fear’ in which ‘mafia groups’ were said to ‘terrorize’ staff and prisoners alike. Despite the account inevitably being incomplete, it was hoped that lessons could be drawn, both for social research and social policy in regard to prisons.

Originally published in 1977, Albany: Birth of a Prison - End of an Era attempts to document and analyse some of the changes which happened in the first five and a half years of the prison’s opening and as far as possible account for them. Albany was planned and built as a medium-security establishment but the growth in the prison population meant it ended up, in part, as a maximum-security unit. At the time the prison was notorious, after a stormy series of incidents culminated in an alleged mass escape attempt and a riot, it had become known as the ‘jail of fear’ in which ‘mafia groups’ were said to ‘terrorize’ staff and prisoners alike. Despite the account inevitably being incomplete, it was hoped that lessons could be drawn, both for social research and social policy in regard to prisons.

Originally published in 1976, A Taste of Prison deals with a very sensitive area of concern in the system of trial and imprisonment in Britain at the time. It describes the conditions at Winchester Prison and Winchester Remand Centre for both adults and young persons who were held in custody before trial or who were awaiting sentence. Despite the fact that many of these persons would not subsequently be sent to prison by the courts, the conditions they experienced were in many respects no better and in some respects worse than those for persons sentenced to imprisonment. Moreover, as this study shows, the special provisions for these persons embodied in the Prison Rules and Standing Orders of the Prison Department often meant little in practice – either because they remained unaware of their rights or because they were unable to take them up for various reasons.The authors discuss the function of remands in custody within a changing prison system, analyse recent trends in the numbers of persons received into the prison system on remand, and assess their contribution to the prison population. The implications of the findings are discussed in the context of the prison building programme and the uses to which existing buildings could be put. Finally, the authors make a number of proposals for the improvement of the regime for remand prisoners.

Originally published in 1976, A Taste of Prison deals with a very sensitive area of concern in the system of trial and imprisonment in Britain at the time. It describes the conditions at Winchester Prison and Winchester Remand Centre for both adults and young persons who were held in custody before trial or who were awaiting sentence. Despite the fact that many of these persons would not subsequently be sent to prison by the courts, the conditions they experienced were in many respects no better and in some respects worse than those for persons sentenced to imprisonment. Moreover, as this study shows, the special provisions for these persons embodied in the Prison Rules and Standing Orders of the Prison Department often meant little in practice – either because they remained unaware of their rights or because they were unable to take them up for various reasons.The authors discuss the function of remands in custody within a changing prison system, analyse recent trends in the numbers of persons received into the prison system on remand, and assess their contribution to the prison population. The implications of the findings are discussed in the context of the prison building programme and the uses to which existing buildings could be put. Finally, the authors make a number of proposals for the improvement of the regime for remand prisoners.

Originally published in 1971, this title describes a series of studies dealing with the upbringing of children in residential institutions. Most work has been carried out in institutions for children with learning disabilities, although units caring for able but deprived children and children with physical disabilities have also been examined. The investigations have been concerned with the detailed nature of different institutional environments – that is, the routine patterns of daily life in hospital wards, hostels and cottages of children’s homes – rather than with the effects of specific child-rearing practices upon the intellectual, emotional and social development of the children. The more precise delineation of ‘the environment’ is an essential step towards the evaluation of residential services and the interpretation of their effects upon those who use them, yet this is an area which had received little systematic attention from social scientists at the time.This book is a re-issue originally published in 1971. The language used is a reflection of its era and no offence is meant by the Publishers to any reader by this re-publication.