ABSTRACT
In May 1894, Herbert Asquith announced the appointment of a Departmental Committee on Prisons, under the chairmanship of Herbert Gladstone, formerly Asquith’s under-secretary of state at the Home Office. Gladstone produced a business-like report, affirming a policy of gradual change in penal policy and practice. Five essential propositions were visible in the report. The first is that reformation and deterrence were to be ‘primary and concurrent objects. The second proposition was that for reformation to occur, uniformity would have to make way for ‘individualization of treatment’. The third proposition was that rigid adherence to the ‘separate system’, with its features of silence and useless labour, should be replaced by industrial work in association and by the privilege of talking. The fourth proposition sought to beef up the visiting committees for both convict and local prisons, and appoint an inspector of prisons. The fifth proposition relates to the document.
