The inside story
William Douglas Home
The American Prison Business Jessica Mitford (Allen and Unwin f4.50) "With the same wit and pungency that made The American Way of Death so explosive and SO funny, Jessica Mitford studies the lunacies, the delusions and the bizarre inner workings of the American prison business or, in the current Jargon, 'correctional facilities'."
Thus the publisher's blurb, but since not the least hazard in a reader's life is the tendency of Publishers to suffer from 'delusions' and dulge themselves in 'bizarre' definitions, it Oeholds me at the outset to deploy my own correctional facilities'. This book is witty, is it? Perhaps. Pungent? I daresay. Explosive? Intermittently. But funny? No, a thousand times no — nor, in fairness to the authoress, would it occur to me that it was even her intention to farce up so heart-rending a tragedy as prison in America, or anywhere else, come to that. In fact, I find the book depressing, serious and unconstructiye — in the sense that is aPPlicable to any firm of demolition experts, even though one knows that their activities may be the necessary prelude to the work of some enlightened architect. But the trouble With Miss Mitford is that she appears to lack all architectural ambition — what is written in her manuscript (like what is written on the dust-cover), though doubtless full of love, at aLoY rate on a selective basis, is a stranger to the 1:0Pe and charity that would be found to flow trorn an unbiased pen. Take this quote, for example: The enthusiastic acceptance of the indeterminate `,s!ntence as the penal panacea by prison administra,,u_rs. from 1870 to the present time is further Mnaerstandable when one considers that it endows them
With total unfettered power over the prisoners
,.°11fined to their charge — it is the perfect ,,P.rescr.iption for at once security, compliance and `-mroshing defiance because the prisoner is in for the sho ;mum time and it is theoretically up to him to c_nrien the time served — in effect the message 'veyed to the prisoner is, 'keep the joint running rnoothly and we'll let you out soon'.
intSee What I mean? Miss Mitford tries to insert autl the reader's mind the suspicion that • "°ritY only accepts a reform in order to increaSe its power. But such a suggestion is not si(inrilY uncharitable but demonstrably untrue, ce it is obvious that authority had even more
total (if totality can be exceeded!) power when there was no indeterminate sentence. As for securing compliance and "crushing defiance" — both presumably always and inescapably in the forefront of any prison administrator's programme — Miss Mitford seeks to persuade us that they have become even greater sins, if that is what they are, as a result of this reform. It seems to escape her notice that the message. 'Keep the joint running smoothly and we'll let you out sooner' can only bean improvement on the alternative message which inevitably must be 'Break up the joint and we'll keep you here till the last minute.'
Nonetheless, one's heart is with Miss Mitford's point-of-view, if not one's head. Of course, one knows that prison is a hell on earth — at first hand, in my case. But what. I also know (and what Miss Mitford does not seem to realise) is that it is a hell on earth not only for the prisoners but also for those in authority. The agony of mind of most of those who have what is perhaps the least attractive, most unpleasant job on God's earth, should not be forgotten — without understanding and appreciation of the efforts of such people to enforce and mitigate, where possible, the dictates of society, no study of the prison system can be anything but superficial and one-sided, just as it would be if this same author (if I may indulge a flight of fancy for a moment) were to publish a companion volume on the penal code behind the Iron Curtain with authority commended and the prisoners dismissed as an irrelevance. The fact is that so serious a problem should not be subjected to political emotion — it deserves impartiality. Miss Mitford, more's the pity, does not grant it such exemption. She is well content to stir the pot politically. For instance, in a telling passage, she informs us that the prison system has existed only for two hundred years because, before that, such accommodation on a large scale was not needed, since the common run of prisoners were hanged or flogged or put in the stocks or deported, while only the Hons and Rebels, so to speak, were put inside. Now everything has changed, she tells us.
Envision, if you can, a prison system popuiatea primarily by the white and well-to-do.. . . That this notion seems like the wildest fancy is already a commentary on the class character of the prison system.
Now come the politics in tablespoonfuls! "After all," she goes on "no one would expect those who command political power and control the criminal justice system would use them in such a manner as to make them the likeliest candidates for imprisonment." Oh, wouldn't they, by jove! She must have penned that before Watergate! And even then it wasn't true. Miss Mitford has no writ for writing such baloney. In a democratic country, as she knows as well as I do, the law catches up with any man that breaks it, if the police force is efficient, if the Government is not corrupt (and even sometimes if it is!) and if the citizens are vigilant. It serves no purpose, elevates no debate, to imply that prison is the poor man's privilege and that all efforts to create equality before the law have been a failure. It is palpably dishonest to pretend that it is class that makes the prisoner, rather than crime. Of course, the poorer citizens are more prone to temptation than their better-off compatriots — that does not mean, however, that the courts are biased in the latters' favour.
Meanwhile, where does this book get us, if indeed, it gets us anywhere? The final chapter heading is 'Reform or Abolition'. But Miss Mitford has already killed Reform with her insistance that the prison system is class-riddled, unprogressive, lunatic, delusive and bizarre.
Presumably, she favours Abolition, then? OK. How nice to think that Wormwood Scrubs or Wakefield (two addresses that come readily to mind!) would be demolished — with all those grim buildings that perpetuate man's inhumanity to man, an inhumanity, let me repeat, applicable not only to authority, but also to the inmates. Naturally, all my ex-friends and colleagues would applaud so final a solution. One must ask oneself, however, 'would Miss Mitford?' If the governor of every prison in America were to say 'Jessica, there are my keys', like Shylock, would she take advantage of it? Or, faced with the moment of truth, would she hand them back and, like myself, draw comfort from the fact that prisons, dreadful as they are, are arguably more humane than when the prisoners were hanged or flogged, or put in the stocks or deported. It is not for me to give her answer — only to record that I am disappointed not to find it in this book. To sum up, lacking any evidence from Miss Mitford, my conclusion is that faith demands that prisons be abolished, hope insists that such indeed will one day come to pass, and charity empowers me to conclude that notwithstanding all Miss Mitford's prejudices, hobby-horses, propaganda, innuendo, bias, special pleading and downright purblindness, this book, if the subject interests you at all, is wholly readable. But, I repeat with all the emphasis at my command, not funny — anyway not funny 'ha-ha', although possibly (and I am conscious of excess of charity in saying this) funny 'peculiar'!
The Hon William Douglas Home, the dramatist,is the author of the currently running The Dame of Sark. His earlier plays include Now Barabbas, based upon his experiences in an English prison
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