The Penitentiary Act 1779 (
19 Geo. 3. c. 74)
was a
act of the
Parliament of Great Britain
The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union 1707, Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a ...
passed in 1779 which introduced a policy of state prisons for the first time. The act was drafted by the prison reformer
John Howard
John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007. He held office as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia. His eleven-year tenure as prime min ...
and the jurist
William Blackstone
Sir William Blackstone (10 July 1723 – 14 February 1780) was an English jurist, Justice (title), justice, and Tory (British political party), Tory politician most noted for his ''Commentaries on the Laws of England'', which became the best-k ...
and recommended imprisonment as an alternative sentence to
death
Death is the end of life; the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism. Death eventually and inevitably occurs in all organisms. The remains of a former organism normally begin to decompose sh ...
or
transportation
Transport (in British English) or transportation (in American English) is the intentional Motion, movement of humans, animals, and cargo, goods from one location to another. Mode of transport, Modes of transport include aviation, air, land tr ...
.
The prison population in
England and Wales
England and Wales () is one of the Law of the United Kingdom#Legal jurisdictions, three legal jurisdictions of the United Kingdom. It covers the constituent countries England and Wales and was formed by the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. Th ...
had swollen following the initial fighting in the
American Rebellion and the government's attendant decision, by the
Criminal Law Act 1776 (
16 Geo. 3. c. 43), to temporarily halt use of the
American Colonies as the standard destination for transported criminals. As early as 1777, Howard had produced a report to a
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...
select committee which identified appalling conditions in most of the prisons he had inspected.
While the purpose of the act had been to create a network of state-operated prisons, and despite its passage through
Parliament
In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
, the act resulted only in considerable study of methods, alternatives and possible locations; no prisons would be built as a direct result of the act,
although the prison network and
alternatives
Founded in 1994, Alternatives, Action and Communication Network for International Development, is a non-governmental, international solidarity movement, international solidarity organization based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Alternatives works ...
would be created over time.
in his
panopticon
The panopticon is a design of institutional building with an inbuilt system of control, originated by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century. The concept is to allow all prisoners of an institution to be ...
footnotes that:
Bentham denoted that differences of law are to different corresponding sets of ''powers'' and ''duties''; in his Panoptican he wrote this part and referred again to this act:
This plan was adopted by Jeremy Bentham as particular to prisons, poorhouses, lazarettos, houses of industry, manufactories, hospitals, workhouses, madhouses, and schools. A series of letters written in the year 1787, from Crecheff in White Russia to a friend in England, is also elaborate to the Liberal ground of that time. His Pathoscopic (sensitive-faculty-regarding) Pneumatology (spirit-regarding or mind-regarding) is divided into Ergastic (work-producing) and Anergastic (no-work-producing), which this branch is regarded in
Ethics
Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...
.
[Chrestomathia, Appendix IV, Section VIII]
Legacy
The act was continued from the from the expiration of the act until the end of the next session of parliament after 1 June 1793 by section 2 of the
Continuance of Laws (No. 2) Act 1788 (
28 Geo. 3. c. 24).
The whole act was repealed by section 1 of, and the schedule to, the
Statute Law Revision Act 1871
A statute is a law or formal written enactment of a legislature. Statutes typically declare, command or prohibit something. Statutes are distinguished from court law and unwritten law (also known as common law) in that they are the expressed wil ...
(
34 & 35 Vict. c. 116).
Notes
References
Great Britain Acts of Parliament 1779
Repealed Great Britain Acts of Parliament
Penal system in the United Kingdom
{{UK-law-stub