July 17, 2013

RIDDLES, MYSTERIES, ENIGMAS: FINEST HOUR 126, SPRING 2005

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Q: I am a prison consultant to the Republic of Latvia, in the process of writing a consultancy report on prison conditions. Did Churchill ever say, “If you want to assess the quality of a government, visit its prisons.’? —1BALKEN, RIGA, LATVIA

A: Though it sounds like Churchill based on our readings, we cannot find it in our database or source books including his two early books as a crusading Liberal, The People’s Rights and Liberalism and the Social Problem. As Home Secretary, however, Churchill did much to improve life for prisoners and released many imprisoned for trivial offences. See Randolph Churchill, Young Statesman 1901-1914, vol. 2 of the official biography (London/Boston: Heinemann/Houghton Mifflin, 1967), pp. 386-93. Some excerpts:

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“…almost certainly [Churchill] was the only Home Secretary ever to have been in prison….He sought to help prisoners in every way, short of escaping. His chief problem was that too many people were being sent to prison. Of the 184,000 who were imprisoned in 1908-09, more than half were committed in default of payment of a fine, and a third for drunkenness.

“In his first pronouncement of intentions in the House of Commons in March 1910 Churchill said: ‘…prison rules which are suitable to criminals jailed for dishonesty or cruelty or other crimes implying moral turpitude, should not be applied inflexibly to those whose general character is good and whose offences, however reprehensible, do not involve personal dishonour.’ He promised that the so-called political prisoners should be treated separately in that they should not be forced to wear prison clothing, should not be searched or forced to take the regulation bath, should be allowed food from outside, to take regular exercise and to talk while so doing. This amelioration of conditions for prisoners of this kind which still prevails to this day was generally welcomed and Churchill personally enjoyed a good deal of praise from the press and the public for this action.

“…Churchill busied himself in studying the problems of the prison services. The result of Churchill’s studies was presented to the House of Commons on 20 July 1910, when on the Prisons Vote he announced far-reaching reforms.

“First and most revolutionary was the proposal to alter the regulations for the payment of fines: ‘There are almost an unlimited number of cases of men whose character is well known, who have committed an offence for which they are properly punished by a fine, who could pay if time were allowed them, but who, in default of having the money with them in their pockets, are hurried off to gaol’….

“…this measure was accepted [and] the result was dramatic. Whereas 95,686 were imprisoned for non-payment of fines in 1908-09, the number in 1918-19 was 5,264. Whereas 62,822 were sent to prison in 1908-09 for drunkenness, the number in 1918-19 was 1,670.

“The second important proposal was an extension of the Children Act of 1908 to cover offenders between sixteen and twenty-one. The main clauses were that: (a) no young person between sixteen and twenty-one should be sent to prison unless he is incorrigible or has committed a serious offence; (b) that if it is necessary to send him to prison, the sentence must be for more than a month; (c) that he is not to receive a sentence that is merely punitive but positively of a curative and educative character; (d) that the full Borstal sentence should be relaxed in the case of youthful offenders; and that (e) some form of disciplinary correction (drill) should take place outside prison in the case of those youthful offenders guilty of petty crimes (gambling, rowdyism and swearing).

“In 1910 there were 12,376 boys and 1,189 girls under twenty-one in prison. In 1919 there were only 3,474 and 762 respectively.

“Third were Churchill’s recommendations for the supervision of released convicts by the establishment of a central aftercare association…. This was probably as energetic an attempt to deal with the aftercare of prisoners as has been made by any Home Secretary before or since.

“Churchill drew up a lengthy memorandum outlining ‘a scientific and benevolent measure, dealing with prisons and the punishment of offenders…well suited to the Coronation Year.’ His main objective was to do away as far as possible with short sentences, a laudable objective which successive Home Secretaries for more than fifty years were to find elusive. He proposed…greater use of probation for young offenders; the abolition of imprisonment for debt; an extension of the ‘time to pay’ principle; and ‘suspended sentences’ for those sentenced for certain trivial offences to a month or less….But in the wake of Lloyd George’s budget and the Parliament Bill there was little time left for other measures, and Churchill was never able to present his ideas to Parliament in the shape of a Bill. Thus he never got any penal reform on the statute book: but those reforms which he was able to carry out without parliamentary sanction were to shine for years and to serve as milestones and signposts to future reformers.”

Mr. Alken replied: “Thank you so very much for the extensive and informative text. On that background I believe it will be within bounds to say Churchill is ‘alleged’ to have made the remark. It is indeed inspiring to see that, in details, the Baltic republics and particularly Latvia find themselves where Britain was 100 years back, except that there is very little public debate concerning prison reform. It is mostly left to the professionals involved, and to foreign consultants like yours sincerely (I am Danish). My hunch is that the political elite is weary of the subject, suspecting that there are no votes but high risks in it.”