Sir Walter Frederick Crofton (1815–1897) was chair of the Board of Directors of Convict Prisons for

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

between 1854 and 1862. He is sometimes cited as Alexander Maconochie's ideological heir. Under Crofton's system of prison administration, known as the Irish system, prisoners progressed through three stages of confinement. During the first stage, the penal stage, prisoners were held in solitary cells for approximately nine months. The second stage involved communal labour in public works prisons. For the third stage, officials promoted prisoners in small numbers to "intermediate" prisons (essentially a

halfway house A halfway house is a type of prison or institute intended to teach (or reteach) the necessary skills for people to re-integrate into society and better support and care for themselves. Halfway houses are typically either state sponsored for those ...

, where they could run errands and attend church in the community) as a final test of their readiness for Irish tickets of leave. A prisoner who received a ticket was granted

conditional release Conditional release is a method of release from detention that is contingent upon obeying conditions under threat of return to detention under reduced due process protections. When applicable in the context of post-conviction detention, uncondi ...

into the community in which he would be supervised by law enforcement or civilian personnel, who were required to secure employment and to conduct home visits. The "supervisors" represented the forerunner to modern parole officers.

References

19th-century Irish people 1815 births 1897 deaths

Walter Walter may refer to: People and fictional characters * Walter (name), including a list of people and fictional and mythical characters with the given name or surname * Little Walter, American blues harmonica player Marion Walter Jacobs (1930–19 ...

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