The present english structure of corrections

There are three main divisions: the field-supervision agency (the term embraces the function of after-care as well as probation), the juvenile training institution, and the adult prison. Though generally a division is maintained everywhere between the adult and the juvenile institution, this divi­sion is exceptional in the field-supervision agencies.

The English correctional apparatus is a system heavily engaged in keeping up with the demands made on it, not by a largely indifferent society, but rather by the volume of offenders. The stabilised apparatus of the years before World War II has had to accommodate change in deference to the members of its clients and in the light of staff initiative.

For adult offenders, the process began with diversification of service. Prisons of containment need only the modest spe­cialisation required by the essentials of control. Before World War II, prisons for adults could be largely divided between the local establishments for short-term commitments and the central prisons, such as Dartmoor and Wakefield, for those serving long sentences. The innovations since the Criminal Justice Act of 1948 provided for four types of prisons to which inmates might be assigned from the local prisons which still form the substructure of the system. These are:

Open prisons. Adopted from American practice, these ru­ral centres for the training of adults draw on the availability of country mansions with large estates attached. All classes of offenders except those serving the longest and the shortest terms are eligible.

Regional training prisons. Offenders serving first terms or considered to have good potential for training are assigned to these establishments, usually with sentences of less than four years but more than six months. Institutions like Wakefield and Maidstone are included under this heading, and a heavy emphasis on vocational training and remedial education has characterised their programs.

Central prisons. In these establishments are concentrated offenders serving long terms. Central prisons vary from grim fortresses like Dartmoor to Eastchurch, an open prison estab­lished in Kent. Two concepts of social control are represented in the central prisons of England.

Conventional long terms awarded to especially dangerous offenders on a generally retributive basis are served at prisons like Wakefield, Dartmoor or Wormwood Scrubs. But England also has a special system for the control of the persistent re­cidivist in which prevention rather than retribution is the purpose of the sentence.

Corrective training prisons. A special feature of the Crim­inal Justice Act of 1948 was the provision of corrective training sentences for young recidivists. Intended for recidi­vists ranging in age from 21 to 30, the central notion of the law was to provide remedial education and vocational train­ing to young men whose legitimate opportunity was hindered by lack of employable skills.