The Liability of Prison Officials for the Health of Prisoners

THE responsibility which rests upon those who are in charge of prisoners has varied considerably in the course of time, by reason not only of the change in ideas upon the management of prisons, but also of the change in the purposes for which prisons are intended. There are three main periods to which attention should be directed. First, down to the seventeenth century, when prisons were hardly ever used for penological purposes, but merely as places of detention before trial; secondly, from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, when imprisonment began to be ~ punishment and houses of correction were built in every county and large town, but death and transportation to America were the standard punishments for felony; thirdly, the era of prison reform which is still proceeding. 1. The position in the first period is illustrated by the discussion of the topic by Professor Maitland in the first volume of the Eyre of Kent, 1313 (Selden Society's publications, vol. xxiv.). He says (Introduction, p. 65) that" prisons mainly existed for the purpose of keeping in safe ward accused persons awaiting their trial. There was ... no margin between a capital offence and one that was considered to be sufficiently punished by detention within a prison for a week or two.... There were different classes of prisons. There were the King's prisons, of which there were several in the county. There were the prisons of the lords of franchises . . . and there were the prisons of the * Read before the Society. March 17. 1914.