ABSTRACT
Prisons are major social institutions, and key components in any modern system of criminal justice. They are expected to be agencies of justice on behalf of society; various understandings of criminal justice and of social justice are expressed in policies and practices of imprisonment. A more important charge, and one that in the author's experience is supported by many prisoners, is that the treatment model involves an unacceptable amount of discretion on the part of those who operate the system. From the start of the Group's work there was a demand to present 'the Christian theory of punishment', which could then be put alongside the secular theories, and might act as a corrective, complement, or reflection to some of them. The law, and in particular retributive theories of penal justice, operate with a relatively simple notion of guilt. Another way of explaining and justifying a system of punishment which was suggested in the group was to regard it as discipline.
