|
More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
|
Strangeways
|
|
The scene of Britain's most violent prison riot in recent years. The Manchester jail, designed in the 19C for 970 inmates, held 1647 in 1990. On April 1 of that year, during the Sunday morning service, prisoners in the chapel seized control. They held the prison for the next three weeks, doing £60m of damage and violently assaulting sexual offenders (known as Rule 43s, because kept in isolation for their own safety under Rule 43 of prison regulations); one such prisoner died after being thrown from a fourth-floor landing. Copy-cat riots soon followed in several other jails. Lord Justice Woolf's subsequent report on the event made widely accepted recommendations for reform in Britain's *prisons, and a rebuilt Strangeways was in 1992 declared to be an early candidate for *privatization; it was subsequently 'market tested', but the prison service itself won the contract.
|
|
|
|