Prisons and the Prisoner An Introduction to the Work of Her Majesty's Prison Service

This book is about the people who live and work in the prisons of England and Wales. It contains contributions from Prison Service staff, an ex-prisoner, academics and a pressure group and aims to give an idea of the complexity of the world of prisons and prisoners. It was written for the public, students and new practitioners in the criminal justice field. The book is in six parts. It begins by looking at the operating context including the purposes of imprisonment, the history of the prison system, the joint working context, the structure and organisation of the Prison Service, private sector involvement and ethnic minorities and race relations policy in prisons. Part two considers the prison population as a whole and looks at distinct groups of prisoners -high-security, life-sentence, women and young people - their specific needs and management. Part three looks at the people who work in prisons. Part four examines in detail what happens in prisons. Part five looks at external monitoring and accountability. The role of the inspectorates, Prisons Ombudsman, Boards of Visitors and pressure groups are examined. The last part of the book offers a view of the future of the Prison Service. The Aims, Objectives and Principles of the Prison Service and its key performance indicators are given in the annexes.