Prison policy into the 1990s: Lessons from the woolf report

Abstract

The upheaval which occurred in prisons in England and Wales during the spring of 1990 led to the establishment of a judicial inquiry under the chairmanship of Lord Justice Woolf. The inquiry report has recently been published and it contains, in addition to a detailed survey of the events of the riots, a series of recommendations relating to prison policy in general. This article comments critically upon the potential impact of those policy recommendations for the regime in British prisons in the 1990s. On some issues the report makes recommendations which, if enacted, would bring about important changes; for example, the introduction of codes of legally enforceable prison standards. In other areas the report has been more circumspect and has left issues such as policy directed at reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS to be evolved by the Home Office. The article concludes with a note of caution: penal policy is slow to develop and it may be better to regard the report as a catalyst for change rather than a blueprint for reform.