§ THE EARL OF ELGIN, in rising to call attention to the action of the Prison Commissioners in Scotland; and to ask the Secretary for Scotland, Whether he has any information to show that the concentration of prisoners in a few large prisons, by the closing of local prisons, well equipped and well managed, like that at Cupar, would tend to increased efficiency or diminished expenditure? said, their Lordships would remember that in 1877 Acts were passed for England, Scotland, and Ireland which, transferred the control of the prisons from the local to the Imperial authorities, and which also transferred a portion of the cost formerly falling on the local authorities to the Imperial funds. This last provision might have had a good deal to do with the passing of the measures; but it was right to say that the Government did not put that forward as their main object. The noble Viscount the Secretary of State for India (Viscount Cross), then Home Secretary, stated very clearly on the second reading that the only object he had from beginning to end was to promote in the prisons of the country uniformity of discipline, punishment, and management, which he believed to be essential for the proper carrying out of the law; and also, if 1408 possible, a saving of cost. He did not wish to complicate the matter by referring to English experience further than by one remark. The noble Lord said that the average cost of the prisons in England was £592,000, and he anticipated that a saving might be effected of £100,000. The last Report of the Prison Commissioners put the cost at £430,000, and, therefore, the noble Viscount's anticipation had been more than satisfied. He mentioned this because it had a bearing on their experience in Scotland. The Scottish Act was avowedly proposed on the same principle and for the same objects, but in Scotland undue stress was being laid on centralization, and not upon those other objects. He found that even before the prisons were transferred, the Prison Commissioners for Scotland announced that they were of opinion that possibly six or seven district prisons might be found sufficient. The Commissioners had since acted on that footing, and had already reduced the number of prisons from 59 in 1876 to 20, and there were now Orders on the Table by the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Lothian) to still further reduce them. It was, therefore, clear that if any objection was to be taken to the realization of the Commissioners' project, now was the time to do so. He would state briefly the particular case to which he had to refer. The County of Fife was a populous County, with many mining, manufacturing, and other industries. There were two resident Sheriff Substitutes; and before the Prisons Act came into force there were two prisons, at Cupar and Dunfermline. As to these prisons, the Secretary of State had himself written officially to the Commissioners of Supply in August, 1880, that they were, without exception, the best arranged in Scotland, and effective in every respect. In spite of that opinion and of the protests of all the Local Authorities, the Dunfermline prison was closed in 1883, and notice had now been received that the one at Cupar was to be closed at the end of this month. Now, with regard to the prison at Cupar it was thoroughly efficient, especially in respect of econemy, for he found that in 1887 the cost per prisoner all over Scotland was £24; in Cupar it was £22. The returns from prison labour reduced the net cost to 1409 £16 10s. He could further quote the last Report of the Inspector and the unanimous feeling of the County and Burgh Authorities. It was clear, therefore, that in closing this prison the Government would be discontinuing a most efficient local institution, and a natural question was, what was the reason for closing it? The reason given by the Scotch Secretary, in reply to a communication from the Member for the district, was—
That the Government must act upon general principles in accordance with the spirit of the Act of 1877, the most material principle being the substitution of large general prisons for the small local prisons then existing.But he did not find in the clauses of the Act or in the speech of the noble Viscount, from which he had already quoted, any statement of that principle; and the Lord Advocate, in introducing the Scottish Bill, limited the application of that principle to this statement—that in Scotland the number of prisons had already been reduced from 200 to 59 or 60 in 1877, and that there were still too many small local prisons. But, oven assuming that the Commissioners had acted according to the intentions of the Act, he would ask whether their action had resulted in establishing a system that was more efficient and econemical? The Commissioners themselves foresaw that certain inconveniences would arise, and they proposed that police cells should be provided in every town where the Sheriff held a Court for ordinary criminal judisdiction for the detention of untried prisoners and of persons serving short sentences. According to the system of criminal jurisdiction in Scotland, it was necessary for a prisoner to be brought very frequently before the Procurator Fiscal while the case was being got up, and it appeared to him that the result of this closing of prisons would be to give the criminals of Fife a number of excursions at the public expense. There was another side to this question, and that was the difficulty a prisoner would be put to in getting up his own case. Cells were generally licensed for a period not exceeding 14 days, but in a case of any importance it was unusual for a trial to come on within that period. Untried prisoners, therefore, would be removed from the neighbourhood of friends and advisers, and thus would be put to an 1410 unjust disadvantage. The institution of these police cells seemed to him to be reconstituting the very class of small prisons which the Lord Advocate took exception to in introducing the Bill in 1877. Besides the objections on the part of the localities in which prisons were being discontinued, there were also the objections taken by the localities where the large central stations were established, on the ground of the liberation of large numbers of prisoners in their midst, and the expense of the extra watching involved. Captain M'Hardy, Chief Constable of Lanarkshire, had stated in evidence that very serious danger was incurred by increasing the criminal classes in Glasgow, owing to those prisoners from all parts of Scotland being liberated at the gates of Barlinnie Prison. He added—It is the most scandalous sight that any citizen of Glasgow can witness. The state of the road at 9 o'clock on a Saturday morning, when 40 or 50 of the lowest description of Glasgow roughs, and women who are out to meet them, are all hastening in a body along that road.Similarly, in Edinburgh, the Annual Police Report stated that while crime had diminished the number of beggars had increased, and that this was due to the assembling in Edinburgh of a number of discharged prisoners unwilling to work, and who remained in Edinburgh instead of returning to their own districts. When they remembered that among the criminals liberated at the prison gates they had not only the hardened criminal, but every unfortunate who might happen to have been committed for a term exceeding 14 days, he ventured to think that the state of things could be described as scarcely loss than a scandal, and did throw some doubt upon whether a system of centralized prison management was really superior to the system it had succeeded. His next point was one to which he would not have alluded had the noble Marquess postponed his order for closing Cupar Prison until it could have been discussed on the Estimates in the other House. As he had mentioned that the Prison Commissioners in England had effected a saving, if the Prison Commissioners of Scotland had been able to do something of the same kind there might have been a defence from that point of view; but he was afraid the facts were different. 1411 In 1876 there were voted by Parliament for the Scottish prisons £35,700, and the amount raised locally was £44,000. In 1886 there was voted by Parliament £108,903; and though it was said that there had been a great many new buildings to account for this increased cost, it might be fairly retorted that possibly there might have been extravagance if they had been erected in substitution for local prisons. While, then, the English Commission showed a saving of £150,000, the Scottish Commission, on the contrary, showed a great increase—namely, from £80,000 to more than £100,000. Besides, this sum, while it included the cost of the conveyance of prisoners, did not include the cost of the increase of the Police Force, which fell partly upon the Constabulary Vote, and partly on local funds. In 1887, with 2,970 prisoners, the cost of the prisons came to £24 per prisoner; while in 1887, with 2,446 prisoners, the cost was £30 10s. per prisoner. It appeared to him that unless the noble Marquess could show that the facts and figures he had now given were without foundation, there was, indeed, ground for inquiry into the operation of an Act passed 10 years ago. The noble Marquess was bound to show that the administration of the Act had been proper, and was likely to result in an improvement of the system. It was somewhat singular that at the very moment when they were expecting a Local Government Bill, likely to increase the power and importance of the localities, they should have to be discussing a question of the discontinuance of certain local institutions, and to remember that the Bill of 1877 was opposed on the ground that it took away from and diminished the dignity of local life by two Gentlemen who, he might say, were now the mainstays of Her Majesty's Government—the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Member for West Birmingham. He admitted that great advantages might be obtained from uniformity of management and control, but he desired to direct the attention of the Secretary for Scotland to the consideration of whether it might not be possible to secure uniformity of management and, at the same time, to retain throughout the country those local prisons which were sufficiently well managed, and he was confident the Local Governments of 1412 the future would be content with nothing less.
THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (The Marquess of LOTHIAN)said, the speech of the noble Earl afforded a good illustration of the inconvenience, to a certain extent, of the custom of making speeches upon asking Questions in that House. The noble Earl's Question referred, generally speaking, to the management of the Prisons Commission in Scotland, and especially to the question of the closing of the prison of Cupar. But the noble Earl had gone over the whole question of the desirableness of amending the present system, which was to maintain large centralized prisons as against small ones. He had gone into questions of prison management. He had spoken of the administration of the prison at Barlinnie, and the disadvantages of the system of liberating prisoners at the prison gates, as against conveying them to the railway stations. He had gone into the question of how far the existence of the prison of Edinburgh had increased the criminal population there; and he had gone into the question of the cost of the now prisons. He, therefore, felt somewhat at a loss to know where to begin in answer to the noble Earl. He had better take the general question, as to whether it was desirable to have large centralized prisons, or the small local prisons that existed before 1877? Upon that question he thought the noble Earl had granted that it was not only a question of economy which actuated Parliament in 1877, and had distinctly stated the other reasons which prompted the noble Viscount (Viscount Cross) in introducing the Bill. Parliament was so unanimous on the subject that they passed the English Bill with a majority of no less than 210, and the Bill for Scotland was passed without a Division at all. The noble Earl said it was his duty to inquire into the working of that Act, and see whether it was a desirable measure or not. He must repudiate that suggestion altogether. Government would be simply impossible if every Minister were to inquire into the working of every Act after the lapse of a few years. But they had some light on the subject indirectly, for the Royal Commission on Irish Prisons, in their Report of 1884, had 1413 condemned the system of numerous small local prisons in Ireland. Their Report was published seven years after the passing of the Act which the noble Earl complained of, and the Irish Commissioners had before them the results of those seven years' experience before they came to that conclusion. They said—
We are convinced that the fact of there being such a large number of local prisons in Ireland, and the consequently small number of prisoners in most of them, lies at the root of the principal defects of the existing administration.…. Whether, therefore, we study economy of public money, or economy of the time and labour of superintending authorities; whether we regard the efficiency and contentment of prison officers of all grades; or whether we turn to the discipline, reformation, and legitimate wants of the prisoners, we are alike convinced that a reduction of the number of Irish local prisons and the concentration of the prisoners in fewer and larger prisons are indispensable conditions for the introduction of those improvements which are most urgently required in the present system,For himself, therefore, he was not prepared to go back upon the principle affirmed by the Act of 1877. With reference to the prison of Cupar, he did not wish to say a single word against it. It was an efficient prison. Its management was good; but it had been found unsuitable in respect of accommodation for the laundry trade, and wanting in means for the proper separation of male and female prisoners. The noble Earl's speech would have convoyed the impression that Cupar Prison was a large prison. It was not a large prison. The average number confined in it was about 33, and oven some of those had been sent from districts outside the county of Fife for the purpose of maintaining the laundry trade. Cupar was smaller than the smallest prison either in England or Wales with one exception, that of Brecon, and the Prison Commissioners had had to deal with it in the general spirit of the Act of 1877. The noble Earl had quoted from a letter of the Secretary of State of 1880, in which it was stated that Cupar Prison was one of the best in the country; but the noble Earl had omitted to read the concluding part of that letter, which went on to say that Cupar Prison might eventually be closed in accordance with the general principle of the Act of 1877; and in a subsequent letter it was said that if this took place, and the Com- 1414 missioners of Supply memorialized the Home Office to license police cells at Cupar, favourable consideration would be given to the case. This was said eight years ago, and it was precisely the position taken up by himself (the Secretary for Scotland) now. He adhered altogether to the undertaking then given by the Secretary of State, and should now be prepared to carry out those arrangements. As to the alleged inconvenience to prisoners getting up their defence, he had consulted one of the Prison Governors in Scotland—a gentleman well acquainted both with the old system and the now—and he was unable to point to a single instance of a prisoner being put to the slightest disadvantage by transference to a prison outside his district, nor had any such case been brought under the notice of the Secretary for Scotland. With respect to the noble Earl's remarks as to the inconvenience of discharging prisoners at Barlinnie, he had only to say that, if this course were not adopted, it would be necessary to take the prisoners to Glasgow and discharge them there—a course which would involve a fresh difficulty as to the place of discharge, and would also occasion a serious increase of expense, as the present system cost only £400 per annum, whereas that proposal would probably cost £1,000. With respect to the case of Edinburgh, where, according to the noble Earl, crime had increased in consequence of the discharge there of prisoners sent from country districts, he had to say that, in the year 1886, only 240 of those prisoners who came from outside Edinburgh declined the offer of tickets with which to return to the places where they were tried; moreover, some of those discharged prisoners, although sentenced elsewhere, belonged to Edinburgh, and naturally preferred to remain there when set at liberty. He hardly thought that the facts supported the contention of the noble Earl that the now system increased the criminal population of Edinburgh. Then as to the cost, if the noble Earl's statement were correct, it was, no doubt, a serious consideration; but, on the whole, after careful inquiry, he found that by the new system, when properly compared with the old one, there was a saving of £13,000 or £14,000 a-year. Since the Act was passed the salaries of prison 1415 officers had, of course, gone on increasing by the annual increments allowed by the Treasury scale of pay; moreover, a decision of their Lordships' House, "Mullins v. Treasurer of County of Surrey," had thrown upon the Prison Commissioners the expense, which amounted to £2,000 a-year, of conveying prisoners to prison from the place of their trial, which up to the year 1881 had been defrayed by the several county authorities. In addition to this an annual sum of £1,000, previously paid by the Exchequer, was now paid by the Prison Commissioners. It was quite fallacious to estimate the cost of prison administration by the charge per prisoner, because the larger the number of prisoners the smaller would be the cost per head for their maintenance; and he was happy to say that the number of prisoners had of late years, owing to the spread of education and the decrease of intoxication, greatly diminished. But he thought that some of the credit for this diminution of crime was due to the more efficient management of the prisons. He thought he had replied to all the points raised by the noble Earl, and, in conclusion, could only say that he felt himself obliged to adhere to the system which had been so many years in force, and that he could hold out no hope that the order under which Cupar Prison would be closed on the 31st would be revoked.