DARTMOOR PRISON (Hansard, 10 May 1963)

§ Sir Henry Studholme (Tavistock)

I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to raise a matter in connection with Dartmoor Prison.

My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has explained to me that, owing to a previous important engagement, he cannot be here to reply to the debate as he should have liked to have done. I fully understand that. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State, when she replies, will be able more fully to explain than was possible the other day in Question and Answer to the House, why my right 910 hon. Friend did not confirm sentences of corporal punishment on two prisoners for their part in disturbances at Dartmoor Prison on 11th December. That is the matter that I wish to raise.

I was approached in March by wives of prison officers at Dartmoor Prison who asked me to forward a petition to the Home Secretary, and their request seemed to me very reasonable in view of the fact that their husbands, in the course of their duties, are in a position to be attacked by dangerous criminals. They asked that stronger action be taken in such cases in future.

Many people may have got the impression from some reports in the Press that it was becoming a policy of my right hon. Friend to substitute psychiatric treatment for sterner measures of punishment in such cases of assault. One bad visions of dangerous and violent characters reclining on sofas, cocking a metaphorical snook at authority, while they explained to sympathetic psychiatrists that their delinquencies were all due to some pre-natal influence or a childhood experience for which they were in no way responsible.

Someone said to me, "It looks as though the Home Secretary is getting rather weak." Having known my right hon. Friend for more than thirty years, I realise that that is the last thing which he could fairly be accused of being. It would be hard to find a more sensible and well balanced individual, if I may say so, than my right hon. Friend. For that reason, it was clear to me that the case of these two men could not be as simple as it appeared at first sight and that there must have been other factors about which we did not know which made my right hon. Friend come to his decision.

This was borne out by the fact that, in his Answer to my Question, my right hon. Friend pointed out that, out of 24 awards of corporal punishment made by boards of visitors and visiting committees since 1960, 15 had been confirmed. He also reminded me that it was his duty to consider each case on its merits, which, of course, it is.

I appreciate that it may not be proper for a Minister to disclose full details of individual cases, but perhaps my hon. Friend will be able to indicate the sort of reasons why in particular instances 911 corporal punishment is not considered suitable. One could then get a fairly good idea of the problem with which my right hon. Friend had to deal in this instance.

I am one who is not opposed to corporal punishment in principle. Indeed, I think that speedy chastisement by someone whom one respects can have a very salutary effect. At least, that has been my experience. I was sometimes smacked in my youth and I am sure that it did not do me any harm and it probably did me a bit of good. Nor did I bear any resentment. I do not believe in soft treatment far criminals. The natural reaction of the ordinary person to a crime of violence is a desire that the criminal should meet with speedy and painful retribution, both as a punishment for his crime and a deterrent to others who might be tempted to follow his example.

However, it seems doubtful whether, merely to deter other people, one would be justified in administering corporal punishment to a man who was mentally subnormal, or a man on whom such punishment had already proved to be ineffective. In such cases, no doubt, other methods might be more suitable. I have raised this question today to give the Home Secretary an opportunity to explain the principles which guide him in such matters so that the public can understand them.

It is very important that people should feel satisfied that justice is being done and that all possible steps are taken to deter prisoners from attacking prison officers and that those guilty of violence should be suitably punished and that the Home Secretary is neither soft nor sentimental in his dealings with criminals. I feel sure that my hon. Friend will be able to satisfy me on all those points.

There is one other question which I have in mind in connection with Dartmoor Prison, the future of the prison. Two years ago, we were told that it was the intention of the Home Office eventually to close the prison on the ground that the area was not considered a suitable place in which to build a new prison. I wonder whether my hon. Friend can give us any idea of how much longer the prison is likely to remain at Princetown. Judging from the present 912 overcrowding in our prisons, I would have thought that it would probably remain there for some considerable time. I hope that it will, because its continued existence is a matter of great importance to my constituents in Princetown, many of whom are dependent for their livelihood upon its being there.

§ The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Miss Mervyn Pike)

My right hon. Friend is sorry that he cannot reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock (Sir H. Studholme) himself. It is because he has a longstanding engagement this afternoon. He realises, as we all do, how necessary it is that the people who live in the vicinity of Dartmoor, the families of the officers working there, should have the fullest possible understanding of what lies behind this case. I will, therefore, set out in some detail the facts which have led up to the questions which my hon. Friend has raised.

There is no need to recite at length the facts of the disturbances at Dartmoor on 11th December last. They led to the proceedings against the two prisoners whose case we are discussing. On 14th December, 1962, the Home Secretary gave a very full answer to the hon. Member. It is necessary for me only to say that there is no doubt the two prisoners participated in a mutiny at Dartmoor during the course of which they committed gross personal violence towards prison officers.

As a result, the Board of Visitors at Dartmoor made an award in each case for corporal punishment with alternative punishment including 120 days' forfeiture of remission if this award was not confirmed.

It is not usual to enter into detailed discussion on why the Home Secretary confirms or does not confirm an award of corporal punishment, but in this case publicity has attached to the fact that the Home Secretary did not confirm the award and, indeed, discussion has already taken place in the House about these two cases, so that I feel that in order to answer the points already made I must go into some detail about these individual cases.

I should like to make the following points at the outset. The decision of my right hon. Friend not to confirm the 913 award was taken after a most anxious consideration and did not indicate any difference with the board of visitors about the seriousness of this gross and inexcusable attack on the prison officers concerned. On that, there was no difference of opinion. The offences were grave and were treated as such.

I should like also to add that we are always conscious of, and have unqualified admiration for, the courage with which those officers whose duties involve the danger of personal injury, carry out those duties, and my right hon. Friend can well understand and sympathise with the anxiety which this possibility of danger causes to the wives and families of those officers. The decision in this case was taken because of what was made known to him after a detailed examination of the history, particularly the mental history, of these two prisoners.

The question has been asked, "Did not the board of visitors have information about the mental state of these two prisoners, and did it not recommend corporal punishment despite this information"? The answer is that the Board had information before it from the prison medical officer about the fitness of these prisoners for all forms of punishment, but it did not have before it the particulars of the prisoners' previous medical and mental history which were before the Home Secretary when he considered his decision.

The Home Secretary does not confine himself, when considering whether he should confirm an award, to those factors which the board takes into consideration when deciding to make it. Considerations vary in individual cases, but a former Home Secretary recently put the matter thus in answer to a Question in the House: In deciding whether to confirm an award of corporal punishment for a prison offence, I have to consider such matters as first the circumstances and seriousness of the offence; second, the prevailing state of order and discipline in the prison concerned; third, the medical and mental history of the prisoner and his record in the prison; and fourth, the adequacy of available alternative penalties."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th December, 1959; Vol. 615. c. 68.] It was after considering all these factors that my right hon. Friend decided not to confirm the award.

914 There is no question of taking a soft line in dealing with awards of corporal punishment made by visiting committees and boards of visitors. As has already been stated in the House, out of 24 awards of corporal punishment made by visiting committees and boards of visitors since the beginning of 1960, 15 have been confirmed, and in most of the cases where the award was not confirmed there were considerations relating to the medical and mental history of the prisoner which had to be taken into account.

All awards are considered on their merits. In the case of these two men, one had an early history of mental instability. He had, in fact, been a patient in mental hospitals on more than one occasion. My right hon. Friend decided that consideration ought to be given to his removal from prison under Section 72 of the Mental Health Act, and the order for his removal to Broadmoor has been approved.

The other prisoner's history of violence and reaction to punishment indicated also in his case a need for further examination of his mental state. In his case, moreover, an award of corporal punishment for an offence at another prison in 1960 had been carried out and had clearly no permanent effect on his disposition to violence.

In the one case, therefore, it seemed likely that further study of the prisoner's mental state might result in action to remove him from prison to a mental hospital, and in the other a previous award of corporal punishment had been ineffective, in addition the case presented abnormal mental features. In the circumstances, my right hon. Friend decided that instead of confirming the award of corporal punishment he would let the alternative awards operate and in addition require further investigation into their mental condition.

I would like to stress that my right hon. Friend did not substitute psychiatric treatment for corporal punishment. What he did was to authorise psychiatric investigation. I think that it is important to emphasize this. On the merits of these cases, my right hon. Friend thought at the time, and still considers, that to have confirmed the award of corporal punishment in these two cases would have been wrong. I hope that I have said enough to show that in these cases, 915 questions of the value of corporal punishment as a deterrent to future violence either by the prisoners who receive the punishment or by others who may be deterred by their example is not really in issue.

I realise that we have to be very careful not to draw too definite conclusions from the statistics we have about gross personal violence to officers, but the figures are interesting and, I hope, to some extent reassuring. In 1960, 30 officers were the victims of assaults by prisoners involving gross personal violence; in 1961, 27; in 1962, 16; and, so far in 1963, there have been 3.

During this period the prison population has increased by about 20 per cent., so that the reduction in the number of violent assaults is even more significant than the figures suggest. I repeat, one has to be cautious, but there is nothing in these figures to suggest that we are 916 on the wrong lines in dealing with violence in prisons.

I am afraid that there is nothing further that I can add about the future of Dartmoor as a prison. The decision that Princetown is an unsuitable location for a new prison still holds, and it is still our intention to transfer Dartmoor prisoners elsewhere when other accommodation becomes available. Local authorities and other interested bodies were told in March, 1961, that a start on reducing the prison population could not be made before the middle of 1965, and it might well be later. In spite of the additional prisons which are coming into use, overcrowding continues to increase and it is impossible yet to give a firm date. The position will be reviewed as more new prisons come into use.