§ 1. Mr. Haleasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is now in a position to say by what date it will be possible for prisoners serving sentences of preventive detention to be accommodated in prisons exclusively for prisoners serving such sentences.
§ The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir David Maxwell Fyfe)The Prison Rules do not require that prisoners serving sentences of preventive detention should be accommodated in prisons exclusively for prisoners serving such sentences, nor would such an arrangement be possible in the present serious shortage of prison accommodation suitable for long-term prisoners.
§ Mr. HaleIs the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that at Parkhurst, in particular, prisoners serving long-term normal sentences and sentences of preventive detention are accommodated in the same prison and they enjoy quite different privileges; that some have extensive privileges of association while others have different privileges of remission; and that this gives to the staff of the prison the very greatest difficulty in keeping order? It is a source of very real trouble, and to the prisoners themselves it is almost as exacerbating as an all-night Sitting.
§ Sir D. Maxwell FyfeIt appears that by the end of this year the numbers of those in the second stage of preventive detention at Parkhurst will be such as to occupy the whole of the prison except for the accommodation reserved for special medical cases.