What is the fundamental function of prison? The jury is out on whether it is retribution, rehabilitation or protecting the public. But in recent years, with a more complex understanding of mental health, addiction and the criminalisation of poverty, its role in supposedly civilised society has been called into question. While Tory cabinet after Tory cabinet has forged the path of more punitive sentences, many people – myself included – have been questioning the purpose of increasing mass incarceration. Many of us have been calling for a shift towards a more Scandinavian model, which would abandon the rampant overpopulation of our prisons and shift the focus on to helping criminals to become fully contributing members of their communities. It’s a particularly relevant question given that, within days of the election, prisons were said to be so full they were at breaking point, prompting Labour to announce an early release scheme – and possibly even rethink their whole approach to incarceration, given the appointment of James Timpson as prisons minister.
Even though Britain Behind Bars: A Secret History hasn’t shifted my stance on the matter, presenter Rob Rinder’s approach to the subject leads to a far more interesting programme than my own hand-wringing liberalism would have done. The lawyer and broadcaster has a fundamental belief in the legal system and sees these institutions as serving a crucial purpose – but comes to it with curiosity and empathy for inmates past and present. Over three episodes, he looks into three of Britain’s most famous prisons – Dartmoor, Shrewsbury and Shepton Mallet – and interviews experts and former residents of the institutions. In the case of Dartmoor, he believes it is “Britain’s Alcatraz”, an imposing, isolated place that was the site of an infamous riot in 1990 in which a prisoner up on the roof loudly decried the “brutality of this place” – one where stabbings were rife and the inmates spent most of their lives without human contact, being let out of their cells only to empty their buckets of human waste.
