CHAPTER XII.

LABOUR IN ENGLISH PRISONS.

A great change has taken place in the system of labour both in Convict and Local Prisons during the last twenty-five years. In Convict Prisons this change is due, not, as in Local Prisons, to a different policy or to changes in the law, but to the fact that not only has there been a great reduction in the number of persons sentenced to Penal Servitude, but the opportunity for employment on what was known generally as "Public Works," _e.g._, the excavations at Chatham, the breakwater at Portland, the Dockyard extension at Portsmouth, the Forts at Borstal, has largely disappeared. Such Works in the early days of the English Convict system greatly facilitated the purpose of the Administration by affording means for carrying into effect the object of a sentence of Penal Servitude, which was to create a deterrent effect on the prisoner himself by the execution of a hard day's work, to develop his intelligence by his employment on interesting and productive labour and to give facilities for acquiring a knowledge of all those trades which the construction of such Works involved. Moreover, having regard to the valuable character of the Works referred to, it was possible in those days largely to recoup the cost of maintaining the Prisons. Thus the value of the labour of convicts at Portland, Portsmouth, Chatham and Borstal during the year 1880-1 amounted to £124,000, exclusive of the value of what is known as the domestic service of Prisons, such as baking, cooking, washing, &c., while the cost of maintaining those Prisons in the same year was £147,000. It has never at any time been regarded as an axiom in this country, however, that all prison labour should be remunerative or that the primary object of a Prison was to make it self-supporting, and for this reason, in those Prisons controlled by the Government, (that is Convict Prisons only prior to the Prison Act of 1877), the principle of competition with free labour was not admitted on such a scale that reasonable ground of complaint could arise as to undue interference with the outside market. The "Contract" system by which goods are manufactured for outside firms with the use of machinery, or under the supervision of the agents of those firms, is unknown in English State Prisons; and from early days to the present time, there has been no change of policy in this respect. The largest prison in the country, Wormwood Scrubs, was built entirely by convict labour, between 1874 and 1890. It has cellular accommodation for 1418 prisoners. Most of the bricks were made by prison labour on an adjacent site leased for the purpose. The massive blocks of stone used for the chapel, gate, and other buildings were quarried by convicts at Portland and Dartmoor: iron castings were prepared at Chatham and Portland. The average cost per cell was £70. 7. 0, as compared with a mean rate of £164 per cell paid to contractors elsewhere. Although no Public Works of importance have been undertaken for many years, the constant reconstruction of, and other works in connection with, the Convict Prisons of Aylesbury, Portland, Dartmoor, and Parkhurst have continued to engage a large percentage of the labour at the disposal of the Authorities. Thus of the value of the labour performed in Convict Prisons during 1912-13--a total of £63,000--more than half was in connection with building and quarrying work, the rest being divided between manufactures, farm and domestic service in the proportion of £16,000, £5,000, and £9,000 respectively. Apart from the fall in the numbers of the convict population, which now represents not more than a daily average of 1,500 persons, (whereas in the period of Public Works, strictly so called, to which I have referred, it was about 10,000) there has been a remarkable change in the physique and personnel of persons sentenced to penal servitude. From a medical census of the inmates of Convict Prisons taken in 1881, no less than three-fourths of the convicts were fit for hard labour of any kind, while only about one-thirtieth, or rather more than three per cent., were deemed unfit for any labour. An intermediate group of about twenty-one per cent. were returned as fit for the lighter forms of labour. A medical census of Convict Prisons taken in 1898 shows that only fifty-six per cent. were fit for hard labour, while seven per cent. were unfit for any labour and thirty-seven per cent. fit only for light labour. The days are, therefore, past when Public Works can be undertaken by large bodies of convicts either at the place of detention itself or by transfer to other localities for this special purpose. The last Public Work of this nature contemplated by the Government was the building of the new harbour at Dover; but though the plan advanced so far that a special prison was actually built at Dover for the location of the necessary number of convicts, the idea was not proceeded with chiefly on account of the great delay and slowness of building operations which is inseparable from the employment of convict labour. The result is that with the exception of quarrying stone, which is still a distinctive feature of the convict labour at Portland and Dartmoor, and reclaiming land for farming purposes (Dartmoor and Parkhurst), the character of the labour in Convict Prisons is more and more approximating to that in Local Prisons. Thus, if we compare the work carried on at the Local Prison of Wormwood Scrubs and at Parkhurst at the present time, we should find that much of the work was practically the same for those undergoing the longer sentences, _e.g._, a considerable number at each Prison would be employed as tailors, smiths and fitters, shoemakers, bricklayers, labourers and carpenters. In Convict Prisons, however, there was till recently no cellular labour, and the hours of labour and the whole system of Administration were adapted to the principle of outdoor associated labour. Now that the quarries employ a continuously diminishing number, the system of labour in both Convict and Local Prisons will be more and more assimilated.

Labour in Local Prisons has quite a different history. These Prisons did not come under Government control till 1878. The want of uniformity in their management, leading to an inequality of punishment in different parts of the country, was one of the principal arguments used for the centralization of all Prisons in the hands of the State; and it was specially marked in the matter of Prison labour. The Parliamentary inquiry of 1863, which led to the passing of the Prison