Six Years In The Prisons Of England

A preview of James Fairweather's book (the full text of which is included in full in our latest publication 'The Rise, Fall and Redemption of James Fairweather'). This fascinating account of Victorian prison life shows that there is nothing new under the sun, including full body cavity searches! Substitute 'drugs' for 'tobacco' and it could have happened last week, rather than 150 years ago:

On my arrival at the Yorkshire prison I and my companions were subjected to a new, and to me most painful operation. I am quite well aware that it would be next to useless, if not quite hypocritical, in one in my position to lay claim to any considerable delicacy of feeling, or to appear to be over scrupulous in matters of common decency. But there will occasionally, however, be found even amongst convicts those who will bear a pretty long period of imprisonment, during which they are subjected to a variety of contaminating influences, and yet not have their moral sensibilities completely destroyed. Of these I was one, and I felt that the treatment which I had now to undergo was conceived in a barbarous spirit, and was well-fitted to destroy utterly any feelings of self-respect which my previous experiences had still left me. Every part of my body was minutely inspected immediately on my arrival, in order that I might not take any money or tobacco into the prison.

Doubtless it is very desirable, and even necessary, that every precaution should be taken to prevent such articles finding their way into prisons — at least on the persons of prisoners—but the fact remains that, notwithstanding these inspections, both money and tobacco do find their way into prison, and are every day in common use amongst the prisoners. Prisoners will have tobacco, and tobacco cannot be got without money, so that both must be obtained; and the result has been that the more rigorous the inspection, the greater the ingenuity required to evade it.

The trials of skill and invention which goes on between the convict and the inspector, like those between artillery and iron plates, have as yet only proved that, given the power of resistance, the power of overcoming it will be found. One of my fellow-prisoners verified the truth of this conclusion by taking five sovereigns into prison with him, notwithstanding all the care and experience exercised by the inspector.