Word: prisons
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Devonshire, pleasantest county in Britain, has a bleak centre. Midway between Plymouth and Exeter lies Dartmoor, a silent ocean of grey, treeless hills that support nothing but gorse, primroses in spring, and a few water-logged sheep. In its middle lies a grim, grey prison...
Trouble has been brewing at Dartmoor Prison for weeks. Long-term convicts are kept there, hollow-eyed men in grey, their uniforms patterned with the Broad Arrow of King George.* They did not like their food, they did not like their cells, and they had heard tales of bloody, partly successful prison riots in the U. S. In Exeter and Plymouth, police chiefs were warned to be ready. Householders living on the moor were enrolled as special constables. Early last week Home Secretary Sir Herbert Samuel visited the prison to inspect conditions for himself...
...revolt broke out at Dartmoor in which several men were killed and more than a few seriously injured. The immediate cause given for the uprising was the fact that the inmates had found their porridge unpalatable when served without sugar. Though it is to be admitted that prison porridge devoid of the usual appurtenances is probably not an appealing dish when served up, this, as a primary cause, does not sound convincing. Epicurean affrontry must only have been the under that set off a conflagration which was long in building...
...there is no house, no civilization apparent, to make the convicts remember that they are human. There is a wierd quiet that hangs over the place which is augmented only by the wierder call of the Tern. This is not an environment which lends itself to character building. The prison is of ancient design with all the discomfort and severity of the early Victorian period. Nothing is done to ease the burden of the penal existence...
...world is to escape prison riots, convict massacres, and open revolt it must revise its methods of confinement. Prisons must be equipped with the essentials of living, and the environment must be made more congenial. The era when severe physical ordeals were considered the only method by which a convict could "be made a man again" are past. Modern pyschology has found how greatly environment affects character, but these findings accomplish little if not put to some tangible use. America has been troubled by many uprisings of this sort and while they continue the penal system of the nation appears...