Scotland in the nineteenth century

2. Crime and punishment

Section 2.8: Prisons

"the Committee to whom the Petition of the Royal Burghs of Scotland, assembled at their annual convention, relating to their being relieved of part of the expense of erecting proper jails, was referred..."

The report contains returns from 49 royal burghs in Scotland to queries relating to jails. Royal burghs were bound to provide proper jails by law. They answered questions concerning the accommodation for prisoners, the usual number of prisoners confined at any one time, what proportion came from within the jurisdiction of the burgh, the proportion of civil to criminal prisoners, when and at whose expense the prison was built, the expense of repairs, income of the jailer, the escape of prisoners for debt and the annual income of the burgh.

Most of the jails were in a bad state of repair and offered inadequate accommodation. Some of the royal burghs did not have enough funds to undertake improvements. The Committee recommended that the counties in which the royal burghs were situated should be assessed and contribute towards maintaining the jails if the funds of the burghs were inadequate.

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"appointed to inquire into the state and description of gaols and other places of confinement, and into the best method of providing for the reformation as well as the safe custody and punishment of offenders..."

Sir William Rae, sheriff depute of the county of Edinburgh (pp. 241-258), reported that provisions were made in Scotland for the erection and maintenance of gaols by boroughs, but counties had no power of assessing themselves to build gaols. According to the Disarming Act, however, counties were impowered to assess property within the county to cover the expense of apprehending, bringing to trial and maintaining prisoners previous to conviction. He recommended the establishment of a separate asylum for criminal lunatics. He discussed the system of classification in prisons, i.e. the separation of men from women, boys from men, debtors from criminals, etc. Sir William Rae thought the number of gaols should be reduced and all the criminals within a county should be committed to the prison in the towns where the sheriff held his court. Joseph John Gurney (pp. 310-322) had visited a number of gaols in Scotland, including those in Perth, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, Cupar, Dunbar, Haddington and the Bridewell at Glasgow and Edinburgh. He thought Aberdeen Prison was one of the worst gaols in Scotland. In Glasgow a committee had been established for visiting female prisoners and providing them with employment when they left gaol. There were two types of gaol in Scotland; the central gaols such as those at Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth and Aberdeen and the borough gaols. The conditions were particularly bad in the borough gaols where there was much overcrowding, often no privies, airing-grounds or chapels, the cells were usually filthy and the gaolers did not live on the premises. Prisoners committed for petty offences were often left in solitary confinement and lunatics were sometimes sent to borough gaols.

"appointed to inquire into the State of Prisons in Scotland and into the means of maintaining prisoners confined therein..."

The Scottish Royal Burghs were responsible for erecting and maintaining sufficient gaols and providing subsistence for prisoners, the counties not being obliged to contribute any funds.

The Committee found the prisons to he defective in security, accommodation and management and that funds were inadequate to make improvements. Little progress had been made despite the inquiries of 1818 and 1819 and the Building of Gaols (Scotland) Act, which had been designed to enable counties to aid burghs in enlarging and improving the prisons.

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The Committee considered that a solution was necessary quickly and that allocating prisons to districts would help improve the financial situation.

The minutes of evidence includes sections on the design, organisation and condition of the Edinburgh Bridewell and Glasgow gaol and Bridewell and also general discussion on solitary confinement.

Appendix 2: Returns of the state of prisons, giving the name of the prison and its state of repair.

Appendix 3: Abstract of the income and expenditure of the Royal Burghs.

The return shows the number of prisoners in 1826, gives their names and the number of times each had been in custody in 1826 and since 1810.

The returns include the number of people accused of offences and committed for trial for the previous seven years. The name of the prison to which they were committed before trial and the court they were tried in and also how many of them were sentenced to imprisonment and the length of sentence given.

Returns are included of the number of prisoners and conditions in the prisons of the counties in Scotland. Also included are plans of Aberdeen, Rothesay, Dumfries, Dunfermline, Cupar and Dornoch gaols.

The return gives the numbers imprisoned and the reason for their imprisonment, the prisoners' ages and whether the prisoners could read and write and other observations on their educational standards. The return was also divided into male and female prisoners.

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These tables had been constructed in such a way so as to allow comparison with England for the first time.

Table One was split into counties, showing the number committed for trial or bailed, the court the trial took place in, the number committed for similar offences at the same trial distinguishing males and females (pp. 5-100).

Table Two showed the total number of prisoners charged with each offence.

Table Three listed the age, sex and educational abilities of all prisoners (p. 102).

Under the Prisons Act, 1839 all the Scottish prisons were placed under the regulations of a central board. In 1840 it was estimated there were 170 prisons in Scotland, 70 of these were merely lockups, 80 were small burgh gaols with no separation of prisoners, no recreation yards, ventilation or heating. Above these were 12 better prisons belonging to the larger burghs and a further 8 kept by the counties were, in general, better still. Glasgow Bridewell was the best of the Scottish prisons and used by the Board as an example to others.

Owing to the poor conditions of most of the prisons few sentences were completed, the convict being released through ill health.

The Board had decided to set up one general prison using the old prisoner of war camp at Perth (pp. 21-6). It was decided to use the separate system of confinement and knock down most of the old buildings to establish a radiating pattern of cells.

Appendix: plans for the prison conversion at Perth (pp. 48-49) and explanation of the plans (pp. 49-51).

The return gives details of the money levied and how the amount was calculated, with details on the amount of population and crime in each assessed area, and also how the money was applied.

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The inquiry was concerned with the operation of the Scottish prison system. Before 1839 the bulk of the expenses for the provision of prisons fell on the Royal Burghs; several of these had become less prosperous and found themselves unable to meet the expenses involved. Other towns, not Royal Burghs, had grown up with no legal obligation to provide prison facilities. In view of this, the Prisons Act. 1839 had been passed with the object of improving prisons and prison discipline in Scotland. A tax designed not to over burden one group alone had been devised, based on an estimate of population and amount of crime in each area, the money to go towards a central prison based at Perth, while local prisons were to be provided through local taxation.

The Committee decided that a different method was needed to raise taxes as the burghs were being over rated sometimes 8-10d in the pound on real property.

Table showing average amount of prison charges upon each of the burghs, three years before and four years after the Act (p. 11).

Table showing the average amount of prison charges upon each of the counties (p. 93).

Prison statistics for Scotland (pp. 105-7).

The return shows that there had been 22 escapes from the 72 Scottish prisons. Each prison is named and the number of convicts who had escaped recorded and the date of each escape.

Chairman. Matthew Talbot Baines.

The Committee decided that transportation should be continued and the ten-year sentence revived. The use of the hulks for imprisonment should be discontinued but the experiment with the "ticket of leave" system for good behaviour continued until its effect on the criminal population of the county could be ascertained.

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Sir Archibald Alison, Sheriff of Lanarkshire, acting as Chief Justice for the county, dealt with the majority of criminal prosecutions (pp. 28-48).

In Scotland, criminal law was graded according to the severity of the offence, from police courts, which without a jury could give sentences of up to sixty days, progressing to trials before the sheriff who could imprison for 3 to 18 months. More serious crimes were dealt with by the circuit court who could sentence offenders to transportation.

It was therefore argued that the cessation of transportation would have a more serious effect in Scotland than in England, as in Scotland only the more serious crimes had the threat of that sentence.

The Scottish witnesses also thought that the "ticket of leave" system was allowing some of the worst offenders back on to the streets of Glasgow (p. 29). One man who had been sentenced to 10 years' transportation for robbery was caught committing the same offence at the same place a year later and was sentenced to 15 years. Within two years he was caught again and sentenced to transportation for life and he had not been heard of again.

A noticeable increase in crime at the time the "ticket of leave" men began to return to Glasgow had been checked by the Crimean War, with the number of convictions in Lanarkshire falling from 800 to 700 a year (p. 32).

James Smart, Superintendent of Police, Glasgow, pointed out that in Scotland, where large areas had no police force, it was very difficult to supervise the "ticket of leave" men and that one-quarter of them were reconvicted (pp. 48-55). After leaving custody most of them found it difficult to find work and soon returned to their old associates.

The return included Perth prison which had 564 men and women imprisoned including 287 women awaiting transportation, while a further 28 were in the department of criminally insane.

to inquire into the working of the "Penal Servitude Acts."

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The Commissioners commented on the provisions of the Penal Servitude Acts of 1853, 1857 and 1864, and the Prevention of Crime Act, 1871, and described the existing system of penal servitude.

Female convicts in Scotland were confined in the general prison at Perth. There were no refuges in Scotland so the prisoners spent the whole period of their imprisonment at Perth.

Although penal servitude acted as a sufficient deterrent, it was claimed that it failed to reform offenders and it produced a detrimental effect through the indiscriminate association of all classes of convicts on the public works.

The Commissioners recommended that:

1. To prevent the contamination of less hardened convicts by hardened ones, they should be kept apart.
2. Prisoners convicted of treason should be separated from other convicts.
3. The class of convicts known as "weak-minded" or "imbecile" should be separated from other prisoners.
4. The provision of the Penal Servitude Act, 1864, by which any person who had been previously convicted had to undergo a sentence of at least seven years should be repealed.
5. A superintending medical officer should be appointed.
6. Arrangements should be made for the independent inspection of convict prisons by persons appointed by the government, but unconnected with the Convict Prison Department and unpaid.
7. The diets in use in Scotland and Irish convict prisons should he revised.

Scottish evidence:

Captain Thomas Folliott Powell, Commissioner of Prisons for Scotland (pp. 1113-1119) reported that male convicts were removed to England as soon as they were convicted. Female convicts were confined to Perth, where the mark system operated, by which a prisoner could earn remission of one-third of the sentence. He thought that solitary confinement was a valuable part of the system. The term of solitary confinement in Scotland was twelve months, i.e. three months longer than in England and Ireland. He recommended that the period should be reduced to nine months in Scotland, in the interests of uniformity.

Appendix A15: Sentences, revocations and reconvictions of convicts from 1855 to 1876, including statistics for Scotland (p. 1151).

Appendix J1: Regulations for female convicts in the General Prison at Perth (pp. 1225-1226).

"to consider certain questions relating to the employment of convicts in the United Kingdom."

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The employment of convicts on public works became an essential part of the penal system after 1846 when transportation to the colonies was curtailed for a time. Convicts were mainly employed in land reclamation and the construction of harbours. The report of the Royal Commission on the Penal Servitude Acts, 1879, was favourable to the employment of convicts; "we are convinced that severe labour on public works is most beneficial in teaching criminals habits of industry and training them to such employments as digging, road-making, quarrying, stone dressing, building and brickmaking."

All the female Scottish convicts remained under the charge of the Scottish Prison Commissioners during the whole period of their sentence, but the male convicts sentenced in Scotland were transferred under the Secretary of State's warrant to one of the English convict prisons. They spent a probationary period of nine months there, and then they were drafted to one of the public work prisons in England. In May in 1882, for example, there were 771 male convicts in English prisons who had been sentenced in Scotland.

The Committee inquired into the possibility of employing Scottish male convicts on public works in Scotland, therefore keeping them under the charge of the Scottish Prison Commissioners. After considering various schemes, they decided that the construction of a harbour of refuge at Peterhead in Aberdeenshire would be the most useful.

"inquiry should be instituted into the nature of the accommodation for prisoners awaiting trial at courts in Scotland where the presiding judge is a justiciary judge, or a sheriff, or sheriff-substitute; and also into the accommodation for prisoners awaiting their turn to go before a burgh magistrate..."

190 courts fell within the scope of the inquiry. Prisoners often awaited trial in rooms and cells in court houses, or cells attached to police stations. These police stations were sometimes part of the court house building, sometimes separate. The detention of prisoners at some of the justiciary and sheriff courts was often unnecessarily long. Prisoners were often crowded into a few cells and sometimes taken to court in batches. When passing to and from the dock, prisoners were often brought into contact with witnesses and the general public. The Committee recommended that prisoners should be detained separately, adequate sanitary arrangements should be provided and the distance between the dock and the cells should not be more than 20 yards. Female prisoners should be in the charge of female officers.

The Committee also considered the accommodation provided for witnesses and for policemen in charge of prisoners. They also recommended that special rooms should be provided where lawyers could interview prisoners.

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Appendix B: Table indicating the arrangement, the judicial status of all courts and those courts maintained partly by government grant (pp. 15-17).

Appendix C: Description of the existing accommodation at each court, the number of prisoners tried and the recommendations of the Committee.

This report marks a change of thinking on prison diet. It was now believed that "prison dietaries should, as regards the amount of nutriment, be in no sense penal" (p. 1). In the past prisoners on short sentences were given a sparse diet, but it was now recommended that the diet given should not be related to length of sentence.

The diets in use in Scottish prisons were those sanctioned by the Secretary of State in 1854. Dr. Dunlop undertook metabolic studies of prisoners on different diets, studied the dietary routines in a number of Scottish prisons and conducted analyses of milk, bread, potato, porridge, soup and fish given to prisoners in Edinburgh Prison. He considered the food requirements of ordinary male prisoners, older men, women, juveniles, special cases such as those admitted for drunkenness, criminal lunatics, sick prisoners and convicts, who tended to work longer hours and undergo longer sentences than other prisoners. He also considered whether much food was wasted and whether prisoners lost or gained weight.

He formulated dietary regulations, taking the sex, age and size of the prisoner into account, together with the climate and the amount of work he performed. He thought a time limit should be placed on punishment diets and there should be no fixed prison hospital diets.

Appendix 1: Notes on the Scottish poorhouse diets (p. 127).