ABSTRACT
Sir William Harcourt is a hard-hitting Home Secretary, unafraid to rock the penal boat. In December 1884, Harcourt sent a long letter to the lord chancellor, documenting the decline of the prison population, which Harcourt wrongly took to be a proxy for a decrease in the incidence of crime, emphasizing the opportunity that this afforded for further mitigation of punishment by shortening the length of prison sentences. With figures supplied by the Prison Commission, Harcourt presented an exhaustive compilation showing the drop in the number of sentences of penal servitude and of sentences of imprisonment for indictable offences in England and Wales between 1854 and 1883, and the associated decrease in prison population. The decrease in the number of female prisoners was proportionally greater than with males. The fall in prison population was precipitous during the First World War, notably of those committed for short prison sentences.
