Preliminary Programme

In the early 1800s Swedish society faced an upsurge of criminal activity, poverty and prostitution. The elite believed that the main cause of the increasing social issues was moral deficiencies of the lower classes. As a measure to gain better control over uneducated people, and to improve their moral and work ethics, numerous legal and social reforms were introduced. A similar trend of rising crime statistics and political reforms directed towards the poor and the criminals took place in several countries in Western Europe. The reforms and the underlying ideologies have been thoroughly studied in both Swedish and international research, but very little has been said about the people whom the reforms were actually directed towards.
Contrary to most of the earlier research, my project aims to explore experiences of the poor and the criminals. In the 1840s, convicts at the Fortress of Carlsten wrote detailed biographies, describing their childhood, their crime experiences and their encounters with the legal system. With this material I investigate what possibilities poor people had in the society and how criminals experience the legal system from below. (Show less)

This paper will explore the impact and effect of the Second World War on the management and administration of the prison population; on the lives of prison staff; and on everyday life for those in custody in the English prison system. Rather than focus on prisoners of war, internees or those detained due to the War, this paper will examine the experiences of ordinary prisoners and prison staff during the Second World War; a period of penal history that has been almost entirely neglected in both criminological and historical accounts. What was the effect of War on the administration and management of prison system and how did this affect the experience of imprisonment at this time? At the outbreak of War over 5,600 prisoners were immediately discharged if they had less than three months to serve or if Borstal inmates with less than 6 months. A number of London prisons were evacuated and prisoners who had not had early release were moved to provincial prisons. Prisons were also re-rolled to house POWs, staff were called up and then returned to the Service, leisure, labour, daily regimes and family contact for inmates and staff were all affected by emergency orders, the threat of air raids and the realities of the war. This research will examine the impact of the Second World War on the prison system by uncovering the preparations for war made by the Prison Commission and the effect on the prison population; the impact of air raids on prison experience and environment and also the positive ways in which prisoners were able to contribute to the war effort through morale boosting activities or labour. This paper will begin to contribute a more coherent and complete narrative of penal policy and the lived experience of prisons during the Second World War. (Show less)

By the mid nineteenth century, it was acknowledged by British penal administrators that some prisoners were unable to endure the full rigours of penal servitude (long-term imprisonment). One such group were prisoners labelled as ‘invalids’; those who through physical disability or chronic ill-health had an adapted or modified prison regime (for example, light rather than hard labour). Penal administrators of the Victorian convict prison system sought to administratively and spatially group together invalid prisoners establishing a network of institutions that were designated to house and manage those with disabilities or health needs, including founding the purpose-built Woking Invalid Convict Prison. This British Academy funded research interrogates a range of archive material to explore how this invalid system was set-up, operated and was finally dismantled, and will produce the first written history of Woking Invalid Convict Prison. (Show less)