ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 continues the analysis of the abatement of imprisonment by focusing on the years 1914 to 1939. It begins with what proved to be a major watershed in the country’s penal profile, the First World War. The socio-economic changes produced by the requirements of all-out war included a buoyant labour market, a reduction in primary poverty, and greater regulation of drinking hours. This in turn led to a reduction in the volume of crime, especially of minor offences like drunkenness, and an enormous drop in the number of short sentences of imprisonment. To the impact of war, the Criminal Justice Administration Act 1914 added the provision to require courts to give offenders time to pay fines, leading to a large fall in the number of people imprisoned in default of fine payment. Beyond the impact of war, judicial activism (including a slightly more effective intervention of the Court of Criminal Appeal) again lessened the tariff of punishment, leading to the continued abatement of penal servitude and imprisonment. In the inter-war years, however, the executive, in the shape of the Prison Commission and the Home Office, assumed a larger role than before 1914 in pressing for less use of incarceration and promoting alternatives to imprisonment.
