I start with the worst, but I don’t believe it to be the worst in the world. It was voted, though, along with Holloway, Brixton and Walton Prisons, as being one of the worst jails in England and Wales.

WORST:
HM PRISON DARTMOOR

Location: Yelverton, Devon, England.

Capacity: 700 beds

Category at present: Closed ‘B’ – Male.

Opened: 1809.

History: The architect Daniel Alexander, who also designed the London Docks, designed the prison. Dartmoor Prison was originally built some 1,500ft above sea level, supposedly using local labour, at Princetown, in Devon, between 1806 and 1809 solely to house French captives during the Napoleonic Wars (1803–15). Claims have been made that French prisoners also helped build the heavily fortified prison with its dungeons and solid 14ft-high stone walls.

The walls formed a half moon, with three separate yards containing seven mossy stone buildings, capable of holding from 1,500–1,800 men each; these buildings were located on the slope of a hill, fronting the east, each three storeys high, with a flight of stone steps at each end. The centre one was exclusively for black or ‘coloured’ prisoners. Even to this day, there is racism amongst the screws. Some 600 soldiers guarded the prison, as this was a military prison.

During the American War of 1812, many American sailors and soldiers were also imprisoned here. By 1812, the prison that was designed to hold some 5,000 prisoners was already overcrowded, and held 9,000 prisoners. Between 1812 and 1816, out of some 5,000 prisoners held there, about 1,500 American and French prisoners died in Dartmoor Prison and were buried in a field beyond the prison walls. This was the Auschwitz of English prisons!

As well as French and American prisoners being held here, it also housed some 200 who came there from the British Navy.

After the war, the brutal mistreatment of American prisoners of war was investigated by an Anglo–American commission, which awarded compensation to the families of those who had died there.

Dartmoor Prison closed around 1816 and remained unoccupied for more than thirty years, before it was reopened in 1850 as a civilian prison for convicts sentenced to long terms of imprisonment, or to hard labour; it has remained in use ever since.

A prison mutiny in 1932 resulted in the prison administration block being burnt out and most of the records up to that date were destroyed when police from all over the county were called into action. A surgeon, Cyril Sprance, who used to call on Dartmoor Prison to tend the prisoners prior to the mutiny, in his own words, is able to describe what it was like during the mutiny: ‘I drove into the prison and got to the hospital. Prisoners were all round the hospital making a tremendous noise. They didn’t attack us although we expected them to do so. Then Colonel Wilson arrived and I saw him lead a little over a score of men against the convicts.’

In 1959, a government White Paper declared that it was near the ‘end of its serviceable life’.

In 1961, when Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight was commissioned, it was intended as a replacement; however, Dartmoor remained open.

As long ago as 1979, Lord Justice May (May Committee) commented that Dartmoor Prison was ‘… simply against nature’.

The prison remained in use and, following the wave of revolt which swept through British prisons in 1990, this attracted another Law Lord’s dismay at the prison when Lord Justice Woolf deemed that the prison should either be closed or undergo radical changes quickly. The Woolf Report said that Dartmoor should be given a ‘last chance’.

A year later, a Chief Inspector’s report called Dartmoor a ‘dustbin’, but again said that it should be given a ‘final chance’. As that report was issued, police were investigating a racket whereby desperate prisoners were allegedly paying £250 to prison officers to arrange transfers to other prisons!

In 1991, the Prison Reform Trust, usually known for the mildness of its criticisms, called for Dartmoor to be closed: ‘It is isolated and rundown and for 200 years has been dominated by a culture of barbarity and punishment. That culture is all pervasive and repeated attempts to change it have produced nothing but failure.’

In 2001, Prisons Inspector, Anne Owers said: ‘Dartmoor needs to find a positive role supported by a new culture … It needs to be part of a regional and national strategy for the dignified and decent treatment and resettlement of prisoners.’

Of course, all of this fell on deaf ears … as usual! Dartmoor currently operates the Extended Sex Offender Treatment Programme.

Dartmoor was the setting as the site of the fictional Baskerville Hall from the Hound of the Baskervilles in the Sherlock Holmes series of books and films.

I have selected Dartmoor Prison for a number of reasons, but mainly because of its most notorious prisoner ever held there – Frank Mitchell … a legend! Although Dartmoor was a place where inmates were routinely abused and degraded by prison officers, this wasn’t the case with our Frank … he did the abusing.

In jail, Frank was a feared figure and he would easily get his own way with prison staff, although he was once flogged for beating a prison officer senseless.

In 1955, being declared mentally defective, he was sent to Rampton. After escaping from Rampton in 1957, he broke into a house and used an iron bar to attack the owner.

During the police operation to capture Frank, he used a pair of meat cleavers to resist arrest; this led to him being sent to Broadmoor. Soon after this, he escaped, broke into another house and was said to have attacked the occupants with an axe, but in reality he did little more than break into an old couple’s house and held them captive with an axe he found in their garden shed, and doing nothing more than forcing them to watch television with him while he drank tea with the axe neatly balanced across his knees. This led to the life sentence being imposed on him and the newspapers labelling him the ‘Mad Axeman’.

For some reason, Frank was deemed mentally stable and was sent to Dartmoor, where his behaviour took a turn for the better. While at Dartmoor, Frank started breeding budgerigars, which could have resulted in him being called the ‘Birdman of Dartmoor’, but it wouldn’t have sounded as good as the Mad Axeman!

By September 1966, this marked improvement in Frank’s behaviour led to him being allowed to work on the outside of the prison in what was called an ‘Honour Party’.

While working outside the prison, Frank would take advantage of the low security applied to him and traipse off to local pubs, always returning back to prison for the end of work; as long as he was back in time for the evening role call he was left to his own devices.

The Home Office had not issued Frank with a release date from his life sentence and he became disgruntled and word of this soon reached the Kray gang in London. On 12 December 1966, Frank was helped to escape from Dartmoor Prison by members of the notorious Kray gang and whisked away to a flat prepared for him in Barking Road, East Ham, London.

The friendship Frank had with Ronnie and Reggie Kray had started years before in Wandsworth Prison. Frank kept up this relationship and often wrote to Ron telling him of his frustration at not being given a review date for his case.

Not surprisingly, the escape made headlines and sparked the biggest manhunt in British criminal history. Exactly why Frank was sprung from the clink is not clear, but such a powerful man could only add to the dimension of the Kray gang. One theory as to why the Kray gang broke Frank was purely to highlight the fact that he hadn’t been given a release date and that if they could keep him out long enough without him getting into trouble, then the Home Office would have to consider his case.

Being cooped up in a small flat led to Frank becoming agitated. The Krays brought in blonde nightclub hostess Lisa to keep Frank from becoming bored. Soon after this, Frank told some of the Kray minders that he was going to marry Lisa.

The springing of Frank seemed to have brought problems when, within days of Frank escaping (although these days it would be called ‘absconding’), two letters landed at the Times and the Daily Mirror newspapers asking the Home Secretary for a release date for Frank Mitchell. In order to confirm that it was Frank who had written the letters, his thumbprint was embossed at the bottom of each letter.

This prompted the Home Secretary to appear on national TV advising Mitchell to hand himself in. Fear started to spread amid the Kray gang that Mitchell was becoming a liability and that, if he was caught, he might talk and give the game away as to who it was who had freed him! As well as this, Frank was making more and more threats saying that if the Twins didn’t come to see him then he would go to them; a solution to the problem had to be sought.

A plan was hatched to kill Frank and he was given the story by the Kray gang that he was being moved to a place in the country. The next day, 22 or 23 September 1966, a van arrived that was supposed to transport Frank to safety. As Frank stepped out to get in the van, three shots rang out, and these were followed by a further two shots.

Lisa dashed out and confronted Ronnie Kray, shouting, ‘They’ve shot him. Oh, God, they’ve shot him.’

Ronnie Kray later told another gang member, ‘He’s fucking dead. We had to get rid of him; he would have got us all nicked. We made a mistake getting the bastard out in the first place.’

Although Frank was a fanatical bodybuilder and weightlifter, his brainpower did not match his size or strength. He could be lured into anything if the reward fitted what he desired. Although Frank was described as a violent and brutal psychopath, in reality he was as far removed from that description as he could possibly be. Anecdotal evidence points to Frank being nothing more than a gentle giant.

Three years later, the Kray twins, Freddie Foreman and several other associates stood accused of murdering Frank; they were found not guilty. At a later trial, Reg Kray received five years’ imprisonment for freeing Frank Mitchell from Dartmoor and another nine months for harbouring him, to run concurrently with his other sentences.

Debate has continued as to where the body of Frank Mitchell was disposed of; these places range from in the concrete of the Bow Road flyover, in the heating boilers of the local baths, in the boilers of Southwark power station, in the sea off Newhaven Harbour or it was cremated by one of the firm who was also a crematorium worker.

Following the escape of George Blake and Frank Mitchell in 1966, the developments in the treatment of offenders were inevitably held back when the Prison Department found itself involved in a heavy programme of tightening up security in the wake of the report on prison security by Earl Mountbatten.

It was rumoured that on hearing of Frank Mitchell’s death that Reggie cried. Many years later, a Kray gang associate, Freddie Foreman, accepted the role of being the gunman, although this is thought to have been a role belonging to another Kray associate. Frank Mitchell – RIP.

HMP Dartmoor, by all accounts, is a soul-destroying place. The segregation unit is large and is built in a forbidding, medieval, granite-walled wing. The exercise regime in the seg unit was one where you were locked inside what was described by the screws as a ‘pen’. Although this was supposed to be shut down, it was still used for some time after this order was given.

This is a prison where excessive use of control and restraint has been the norm, were feigned concern from senior Prison Service bureaucrats is followed by standard denials from the Prison Officers’ Association.

Disturbed and suicidal prisoners were caged like animals, which raises an even more fundamental question about who was running Dartmoor and who had the final say as to how prisoners were treated … was it the Governor or the screws? There are parallels here with Wormwood Scrubs Prison, where prisoners were routinely beaten in the segregation unit, and all levels of staff conspired and colluded to keep the lid on it. Quite obviously, Dartmoor has always been designated as a punishment prison for difficult and awkward prisoners.

Dartmoor has experienced some changes but has a long way to go before it can become anywhere near an acceptable place to house prisoners, in particular the way that allegations of racist behaviour by the staff had almost doubled between 2001 and 2002. Dartmoor is one of the worst – give it a miss!

For those of you interested, there is a nearby place of interest – Dartmoor Prison Museum. The museum has a display on prison history and sells gifts and garden products, made by the prisoners. Would you believe that a whole industry has sprung up based on the sale of prison memorabilia?

Worst:
HMP MAIDSTONE

Location: Maidstone, Kent, England.

Capacity: 650 beds.

Category at present: Closed ‘B’ and ‘C’ – Male.

Opened: 1819.

History: Going back to the times when the so called ‘mad priest’ of Kent, John Ball, was released in 1381 by the leader of the Peasants’ Revolt from the dungeons, a massively buttressed fourteenth-century building. You would think that this is enough to catapult Maidstone Prison to the front of the queue when it comes to the oldest of the prisons … not so. For this event in 1381 didn’t take place at or on the actual prison site that exists today, although it did take place in Maidstone.

Work on the prison began in 1811 and was finally completed in 1818 at a cost of £200,000. You might be able to see from the older aerial shot of the prison the four-storey Roundhouse that dominates the view.

This was a hanging prison that simply carried on the accepted mode of dispatching the condemned. Prior to such a ‘humane’ method of execution, it was common to be burned at the stake!

Prior to executions taking place at Maidstone Prison from 1831, previously most executions had been carried out at Penenden Heath, where the gallows stood at a crossroads. The last executions performed at Penenden Heath were carried out on Christmas Eve 1830 – a treble hanging. Rumour has it that if you stood at those crossroads on the night of a full moon, you would be able to communicate with the devil.

Although Maidstone Prison was a hanging prison, it was not as prolific as some of the others previously mentioned in this book. From its inception, a total of fifty-eight executions took place at Maidstone Prison, including three women, although only twenty-eight of these executions took place in public, outside the main gate, between 1831 and 1868.

The modern-day case of the child-killer Mary Bell struck a chord when she was one of the youngest child-killers around at the age of eleven when she was given a life sentence in 1968 after being found guilty of the manslaughter of four-year-old Martin Brown, and Brian Howe, 3, on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

In 1980, Mary Bell was released and she started a new life for herself under a different name. In 1984, she gave birth to a daughter. An injunction prevents their identities from being disclosed.

But going back to 1831, the youngest person to be executed at Maidstone Prison was the namesake of Mary Bell, John Bell, fourteen, who was hanged in front of the prison on 1 August 1831 with a crowd of 5,000 onlookers.

Had Mary Bell been convicted back in that time then she might have been assured a swift hanging, but she escaped, as did the eleven-year-old brother of John Bell, James, who was involved in the crime but turned against his brother and became a witness for the prosecution (Queen’s Evidence).

Both James and John Bell attacked thirteen-year-old Richard Taylor and robbed him of the sum of 9s when he walked through a wood in Chatham. John Bell was executed by hanging on 29 July 1831.

Maidstone Prison holds the record for the last public hanging in Britain when, at midday on Thursday, 2 April 1868, 2,000 people watched as Frances Kidder, twenty-five, was hanged for the murder of her eleven-year-old stepdaughter, Louisa Kidder-Staples.

As if holding that record wasn’t bad enough, Maidstone Prison also holds the record for the last man to be hanged in public in Britain some twenty-eight days after the last woman was hanged in public. On 30 April 1868, Richard John Bishop was hanged for murder. A minor argument had turned nasty, and when Bishop was being led away to the local police station, he stabbed and killed the man he had been arguing with who had also been arrested with him.

As if holding these two records wasn’t enough, Maidstone also holds the record for having carried out the first hanging under the Capital Punishment within Prisons Bill passed on 29 May 1868, which brought an end to public hangings.

Under the new law, the first ever hanging took place inside Maidstone Prison when a minor, eighteen-year-old Thomas Wells, was hanged on the 13 August 1868 for shooting his boss. The execution took place in a makeshift execution shed, which was the former timber yard within the prison grounds.

Anyone remember the case of the ‘Brides in the Bath’ serial murderer, George Joseph Smith? All of Smith’s new brides seemed to drown mysteriously in the bath and he went on to become quite wealthy. Nowadays, such a case would be splashed all over the newspapers and make headline news for weeks and weeks, right down to the man selling Smith the wedding dress … and it did back then.

The first charge to be put to Smith was a one of bigamy and then the drownings were fully investigated … and the rest is history. Smith was charged with three murders which were proven by an eminent pathologist to be non-accidental. The victims were proven to have been drowned by having their legs pulled down by lifting up the knees with one hand while having their heads pushed down with the other. Aptly, on Friday, 13 August 1915, Smith was hanged.

The last judicial hanging in Maidstone Prison was rather earlier than the last judicial hanging in Britain when, on 8 of April 1930, Sidney Fox, 31, was hanged for murdering his mother … so no records broken there. The hangings continued, but were transferred from the remit of Maidstone to that of Wandsworth Prison.

I have never been to HMP Maidstone, so why have I given it a mention? This prison was responsible for hanging a fourteen-year-old boy! That makes it a bad place, no matter how long ago it was.

I also thought that it is a bit odd that, as one of the main prisons in and around London that I would like to have visited while on my tour of prisons, why have I never been parked up there? I’m a bit of a fan on the statistics of hanging and when I found that Maidstone held some records in this department, I wanted it listed in my book.

Oldest Working Prisons:
HM PRISON LANCASTER

Location: The Castle, Lancaster, England.

Capacity: 220 beds.

Category at present: ‘C’ – Male.

Opened: 1458.

History: This is the oldest working prison in Europe. The foundations of the castle are that of a Roman Hill Fort dating back to AD 95. Some of the walls in places are over 5ft thick. No tunnelling out of this place.

You don’t get a meaner-looking place than this! This is how I imagined in my worst nightmares what a prison would look like; it even puts Colditz to shame, but I have been fair and listed it amongst the oldest.

Oldest Working Prisons:
HM PRISON SHEPTON MALLET

Location: Shepton Mallet, Somerset, England.

Capacity: 220 beds.

Category at present: ‘C’ – Male.

Opened: 1610.

History: This is the oldest and grimmest-looking working prison in England, apart from Lancaster Castle, which has been classified as Europe’s oldest working prison. The place is awash with history; it even housed the Magna Carta, the logs of Nelson’s Flagship, HMS Victory, and a copy of the Domesday Book for protection during World War II.

During the Second World War, part of the prison was taken over by the American government. As well as serving the USA as a military prison, it also served as a place to execute American servicemen convicted under the provisions of the Visiting Forces Act (1942), which allowed for American Military justice to be enacted on British soil.

The US method of hanging was outlawed in the UK, as it was a fair bit more barbaric than the British way, they did not have a calculated drop based on the condemned person’s height and weight, they just had a standard drop and the noose was just left coiled on the gallows floor.

Oldest Prisons:
BISHOP’S PRISON, 1080

Now this place will take some beating for age! This is the nearest thing you will get to see what the ‘Clink’ prison cells must have looked like. This prison can be seen in Durham Cathedral, England, where it was used to house bad monks. Yeah, a corrective holding cell for way-out mad monks. And it’s no longer in use!

Oldest Prisons:
CLINK PRISON, 1127–1780

Many claims to the title of the oldest prison in England have been made, but I reckon the original ‘Clink’ gaol, which was in the London borough of Southwark, was certainly one of the oldest prisons in England, although the first mention of a secular prison is made in The Laws of King Athelstan (925-39), which stated that a ‘thief can spend up to 40 days in prison’.

The use of the saying ‘in the clink’ stems from this prison, which was a franchise of the Bishops of Winchester … so long before Group 4 came along to run privatised prisons, these Bishops had a hand in running them.

The prison may well have been up and running as early as 1127 when Bishop Gifford had completed his palace when bawds and whores were to be committed to the bishop’s prison.

The Clink Prison Museum is on the site of the original Clink Prison, which held prisoners from the early Tudor years until 1780. Shakespeare allegedly visited an old schoolfriend at the prison. The museum is located at 1, Clink Street, London SE1 9DG, England.

Oldest Prisons:
HEXHAM TOWN PRISON, 1330

This prison was the first purpose-built prison in England and was used to imprison convicted Reivers. This area is bathed in history and there is mention of St Wilfrid (634–709AD) coming into conflict with the King of Northumbria, who threw him into prison for nine months. This indicates that a prison within Northumbria existed much earlier than the one in Hexham town. On release from prison, Wilfrid was banished from Northumbria and he fled to Sussex. While in Sussex, he played a very important part in converting the South Saxons to Christianity.

Currently, the old jail is a museum and concentrates on the history of the Reivers with reconstructions, artefacts and interpretation. The museum is open all year, 10.00am to 4.30pm daily from April–October and Saturday, Mondays and Tuesdays throughout the rest of the year. Tel: +44 (0) 1434 652349.

Oldest Prisons:
NEWGATE PRISON, 1188–1902

Not quite the oldest, but it is always laying claim to this title. In 1188, Henry II ordered that a piece of land adjoining Newgate be bought and that a prison be erected on it and, from that, Newgate Prison was built by two carpenters and one smith for the cost of £3 6s 8d!

I have mentioned the worst prisons, but this prison was built for the worst prisoners. Good job it’s closed down. The whole grisly bunch of prisoners were known as ‘Newgaters’.

Along came Henry III, and the prison was then enlarged; no one ever comes along to make a prison smaller! But by the 1500s it was in poor shape and had to be given a further facelift, but the Great Fire of London in 1666 came along and burned the place down … what a shame!

Soon after, the place was rebuilt in 1672, but, by all accounts, it was still a dog of a place. Not much different to many of the places I’ve been incarcerated in – poor lighting, poor ventilation, poor hygiene facilities and a poor water supply … what’s changed?

Every such prison like this has a dungeon below ground. I’ve been slammed into many such dungeons in what are called ‘modern-day’ prisons; how nice! At Newgate Prison, they had such a place below ground called a ‘stone hold’ where certain prisoners were segregated. These places had no beds; you lay on the stinking ground, like I have had to on many occasions. Historians damn these places, yet they overlook modern prisons! Are they blind?

By 1778, the prison was demolished and a new one built on the old site, but along came rioters from the ‘Gordon Riots’ and the place was wrecked. Reminds me of the Strangeways Riot, only, in the Gordon Riots, some 300 prisoners escaped from Newgate Prison.

Between 1780 and 1783, the prison was rebuilt … can’t blame them for not trying! The place was now a hanging prison and many a condemned person was hanged from the gibbet at the front of the place. This was a regular entertainment event and people would pay to get the best seats.

In 1868, in accordance with new laws, hangings were carried out behind the prison walls.

In 1902, the place was finally demolished in order to make way for the central criminal court.

Hardest:
HM PRISON PORTLAND

Location: Portland, Dorset, England.

Capacity: 600 beds.

Category at present: Closed ‘YOI’ – Male.

Opened: 1848.

History: The decision to site such a prison in this location was based upon the presence of quarries where the convicts could labour, and its dominant coastal position, which was convenient for the disciplining of convicts prior to their transportation.

The conditions within the prison back in the 1800s were cruel and its quarries were a major catalyst in bringing about penal reform in this country.

The quarries were the scenes of many a convict death; the stone hewn from the quarry by the convicts was used to build Portland’s naval breakwater.

During the 1870s, the mortality rate among prisoners was high with nearly one prisoner dying every week. With floggings still being a part of the daily punishment and poor working conditions, it meant that many a prisoner’s scream could be heard in the nearby homes of civilians. This was the hardest of prisons by far, and a far cry from the cushy lifestyle the young offenders have know … they only get beaten once a week!

One of the most famous of prisoners to come out of Portland Prison was a man called John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee. They tried to hang him three times and failed, so he became world-famous as the man they could not hang.

The history of John Lee was that he had been a servant since leaving school, but in 1879 he had joined the Navy but was invalided out after three years. Eventually, he found work as a boot boy at the Royal Dart Hotel in Kingswear.

After a short while, he then went back to Torquay and worked as a porter at Torre Railway Station and then as a footman at a large villa in the Warberries.

In 1883, he was convicted of stealing from his employer and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. In January 1884, he was taken on in the employ of his half-sister, Elizabeth Harris, who had spoken for Lee.

On 14 November 1884, in the early hours of the morning, the usual quiet of Babbacombe was greatly unhinged when a servant at The Glen discovered some very large fires and she rushed to get help.

After the fires were extinguished, the body of Miss Keyse was discovered lying on the dining room floor … her throat had been cut and she had three wounds to her head. The killer had tried to cover his tracks by setting fire to the place in the hope that the body would have been burned and so, with it, any evidence of foul play.

Nothing had been stolen, but John Lee, 20, was the only male in the house and he had a cut to his arm and could not account for the injury or give an account of his movements at the time of the murder.

At Exeter Assizes on 5 February 1885, Lee was found guilty of murder and sentenced to hang. The evidence against Lee was only circumstantial, and he pleaded his innocence prior, during and after the trial. After being sentenced, Lee said to the judge, ‘The reason I am so calm is that I trust in the Lord and he knows I am innocent.’

Come the day of the execution, the man in black doing the hanging was James Berry, an experienced executioner. The condemned man stood on the trap door, the lever was pulled … and nothing happened! Three times this was carried out and each time the trap door was tested and, although the trap on the scaffold opened successfully every time it was tested, it failed to open when John Lee stood on it with the noose around his neck.

The execution was cancelled and the Home Secretary commuted the death sentence to penal servitude for life.

After serving twenty-three years behind bars, on 18 December 1907, John Lee was released from prison. Rumours abound about what happened to him after his release, but in 1909 he is said to have married a girl called Jessica Bulled in Newton Abbot. By 1911, he and his wife and two children were said to be in London, but Lee deserted his family and possibly went to America or Canada, but it may even have been Australia. Nobody really knows.

Most Infamous:
ALCATRAZ

Location: San Francisco, USA.

Capacity: 336 beds.

Category at present: None.

Opened: 1934 as a prison for criminals.

History: In 1934, the old military prison on Alcatraz was given a facelift along with a variety of security upgrades. The type of prisoner being housed here was originally intended as the most dangerous, but time would see unruly prisoners who fought against the establishment making their homes here.

The place even had tear gas canisters permanently installed in the dining room ceiling and guards and guard stations were strategically placed to further heighten security. Dubbed ‘The Rock’ due to its location on an island, it was used for twenty-nine years to house the USA’s worst criminals, and earned its reputation as ‘Uncle Sam’s Devil’s Island’.

The federal government wanted to prove to the American public that it was tough on crime, just as the former Home Secretary Jack Straw tried to prove so in England. The Great Depression of the 1920s in the USA brought about a massive rise in serious crime, and organised crime was fast becoming a problem.

The Prohibition law outlawing booze resulted in major gangster activity and public pressure prompted the decision to open a maximum-security prison to house some of the worst offenders.

The conditions on Alcatraz were never overcrowded due to the prison never running to full capacity – the one-man-to-a-cell living conditions actually made it a more desirable place to be incarcerated than in other prisons.

Although Alcatraz was a humane place, there were still strict rules in place: inmates weren’t allowed to speak to each other except during meals and recreation periods. Escape from The Rock, with its cold waters surrounding the prison, was difficult and the winds blowing in from the water made the prison itself an unpleasantly cold place.

Although physical punish-ment was limited, torture to inmates on emotional and physiological levels could be promoted by putting them into cells with such aptly titled names such as the ‘strip cell’ or the ‘hole’.

By August 1934, the first batches of inmates were selected from the penitentiaries of the USA when prison wardens were polled on whom they would like to send from their own establishment to Alcatraz. Among the first batch were the likes of Al Capone, Robert ‘Birdman of Alcatraz’ Stroud and Floyd Hamilton (Bonnie and Clyde gang driver).

By the time Alcatraz closed down, some 1,742 unruly and dangerous prisoners had passed through the place, but not all of them were gangsters, but just prisoners who had refused to follow rules, who were considered dangerous, or who required closer supervision to prevent escape.

PRISON MUSEUMS

BEAUMARIS GAOL
The prison was built in 1787 and enlarged by the Victorians. Many prisoners here were deported to Australia and many more were executed on the ramparts. The prison chapel is fascinating in its sadistic design – rows of cubicles were built so that felons could see the preacher but not their fellow inmates. Beaumaris Gaol, Steeple Lane, Beaumaris, Anglesey, LL58 8EP, North Wales. Opening hours: Easter–September 10.30am–5.00pm or at other times by appointment. Educational groups and parties welcome. Tel: 01248 810921. Anglesey Heritage Gallery: Tel: 01248 724444.

DERBY GAOL
Derby Gaol is situated in the basement of 50/51 Friar Gate. Derby is a working museum where you can go and see the actual cells where prisoners were housed. The prison first opened in 1756 and closed down in 1828, but has now been restored to its former condition. The museum is normally open on Saturdays from 11.00am–3.00pm where you can even have parties in the cells … we have them in prison so you might as well have them in a prison, too! Derby Gaol, 51/55 Friar Gate, Derby, England.

INVERARAY GAOL
Since opening in 1989, Inveraray Gaol has established itself as one of Scotland’s most exciting heritage attractions. Visit the magnificently restored 1820 Courtroom where you can sit and listen to excerpts from trials of the past. Then pass on to the prisons below, and meet with Warders, Matron and Prisoners in period costumes. See the airing yards, furnished cells and experience prison sounds and smells. Ask the ‘Prisoner’ how to pick Oakum. Turn the handle of an original crank machine, take forty winks in a hammock or listen to Matron’s tales of daily life as she keeps one eye on the nursing mother, barefoot thieves and the lunatic in her care. Church Square, Inveraray, Argyll, PA32 8TX, Scotland. Tel: +44 (0) 1499 302 381. Fax: +44 (0) 1499 302 195. Website: www.inverarayjail.co.uk

JEDBURGH CASTLE GAOL
The Castle Gaol, with a commanding view over the town, was built as a reform jail in 1820 on the site of the original Jethart Castle, which was demolished in 1409 to keep it out of the hands of the English. The jail now houses a museum of social history, re-opening in 1996 following major refurbishment of its displays. The displays in the cell blocks tell the story of the Howard Reform Prison, using costumed figures and period rooms. Jedburgh Castle Gaol, Castlegate, Scottish Borders. Tel: +44 (0) 1835 863254. Open: Easter to end October.

KILMAINHAM GAOL
Kilmainham Gaol is where you need to go to learn about the origins of the modern Irish State. It was here that the rebels of the last 150 years of British rule were held and it was here that the leaders of the 1916 Uprising were executed. No other single event propelled Ireland to independence.
    The Gaol was much neglected since Eamon De Valera left it as the last prisoner in 1924 and, although it has undergone much renovation since, the terrible character of the place is undiminished. The struggle for independence is very well charted and a guided tour and video show fills out the details.
    It is believed to be the largest unused prison in Europe and over its existence housed many criminals as well as political prisoners. You can only imagine the suffering that went on here. Kilmainham Gaol, Dublin, Eire. Opening Hours: April–Sept: 9.30am–4.45pm daily. Oct–March: Monday–Friday 9.30am–4.00pm, closed Saturdays. Sundays 10.00am–4.45pm.

STIRLING OLD TOLLBOOTH GAOL
For 400 years, Stirling’s prisoners were kept in the old Tollbooth Jail. It was a stinking, overcrowded place. There came pressure for improvement and prison reform so the new purpose-built Stirling Old Town Jail was opened in 1847. Designed by Thomas Brown and opened as a County Jail, the building was used as the only military prison in Scotland from 1888 until 1935. Restoration to its current use began in the early 1990s. Stirling, St John Street, Stirling Old Town, Scotland. Tel: +44 (0) 1786 450050. Site open daily all year round.

Yorkshire Law and Order Museum
For details about the museums attractions, access the website: www.ripon.co.uk/museums