The Abolitionist No. 18 (1984)

Introduction / Commentary by John Moore

The lead article in this edition is an account by peace activist, Karen Robinson, of her ten days in prison following her refusal to pay fines in respect of protests outside Parliament and a US Air base. A really interesting read which feels particularly relevant at a time when environmentalist and anti-police protesters are being incarcerated.

The other articles in the RAP section focus on ‘crime prevention’. Tony Ward introduces the section; Jill Radford writes about Wandsworth Policing Campaign’s “Violence Against Women - Women Speak Out” survey;  Carol Gaca describes the work of NACRO’s Safe Neighbourhood Unit; Julian Scola critiques the newly introduced Neighbourhood watch; and Tommy Shepard and Vicki Carter of the Community Alliance for Police Accountability critique police responses to racist attacks in East London. This whole section demonstrates a growing tension about RAP’s abolitionism. It is summed up by Ward in his introduction to the section when he asks ‘are there some kinds of crime against which socialists or libertarians should accept, or even encourage, the use of the repressive machinery of the state?’

Again, just over half of the edition is given over to Women in Prison (WIP), PROP and Inquest. WIP’s section includes an editorial; reports from various prisons; an anonymous account of a woman released from Holloway; a report on the experience of medical ‘care’ of women imprisoned in Styal by Sylvia; cuttings from press coverage of WIP’s campaign to highlight the conditions in Holloway Prison’s psychiatric wing; an interview with Jim Anderson, the Governor of Styal Prison; a book review; and a statement of WIP’s demands.

PROP’s Prison Briefing includes a review of the first report of the Chief Inspector of Prisons. Given PROP had identified the Inspectorate as being deliberately established to be ineffective, it questioned the value of its review observing: ‘to review a publication which itself seems to be regarded as irrelevant must be piling irrelevance upon irrelevance’. Nevertheless the article makes some important points. The other article focuses on medical abuses at Broadmoor, focusing on Dr Loucas, a consultant psychiatrist who was conducting electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) on patients without either anaesthetics or muscle relaxants. The Briefing ends by highlighting the ongoing vulnerability of a Broadmoor patient, John Silver, who had given evidence about prison officer conduct at the inquest into the death of Micheal Martin at the hospital.

The Inquest Bulletin includes an article by Melissa Benn and Ken Worpole on the dramatic rise in deaths involving police cars; Tony Ward’s critical review of the Chief Inspector of Prisons’ report on Suicides in Prison and Phil Solomons critically evaluates the rules surrounding Inquests concluding that on all important issues they remain ‘at the discretion of the coroner’. Number 18 concludes with a further article from Phil Solomons reviewing the latest figures on the drugging on the drugging of prisoners; and a review of Jimmy Boyle’s The Pain of Confinement by Joe Sim.