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England in the 1840s was a place of dizzying industry, rapid urbanisation and technological progress.
Among the proliferation of inventions, a new type of building was unveiled to the world. A prison, K-shaped with long corridors made of sure, thick walls, and small windows in cold, solitary cells.
The design of Pentonville was heralded by the fashionable print media of the day.
The new prison will be most conducive to the reformation of prisoners and to the repression of crime … It resolves itself into a greater uniformity of plan and purpose than has yet been exhibited in prison architecture.
The Illustrated London News in its coverage of the new facility on August 13, 1842.
It became a blueprint on which 90 others were built in the next 35 years: the beginning of England’s Victorian prison estate.
But while most of the industrial mainstays of 19th-century design have since faded into sepia-tinted vestiges of Victoriana, prisons like Pentonville are far from redundant – in fact they have never been busier.
Today, Britain is the most incarcerated country in western Europe. Incredibly, 31 of the jails still in operation in England and Wales were built by the Victorians. They house about 22,000 prisoners, a quarter of the prison population.
Inside, their damp, crowded, poorly ventilated cells have become a symbol of the prison system in this country. And the system is in crisis. Violent disorder, phones, drugs and drone smuggling are all urgent issues on HMP’s agenda.
In this investigation we explore how centuries-old design is failing those who suffer at the hands of this very modern crisis.
The Victorian prison cell
A 19th-century solution to a 21st-century problem
The piers or partitions between them are 18 inches thick, and are worked with close joints, so as to preclude as much as possible the transmission of sound.
A description of HMP Pentonville in the Illustrated London News, 1843
Victorian prisons were designed to reform inmates through silent, solitary contemplation in cells which were arranged to keep them isolated. Cells were built to house one prisoner, alone.
But as the prison population in England and Wales has ballooned over the centuries, the days when all prisoners were allocated their own individual cell have faded into memory. While the Victorians built or extended 90 prisons to accommodate about 20,000 people, currently there are 122 prisons in total for a population of more than 80,000.
In these conditions prisoners share confined spaces. In 17 out of 31 Victorian prisons in use, more than half of inmates are held in crowded accommodation – defined as two people sharing a cell that is meant to be for one person only.
In some jails, like Durham, Usk, Wandsworth and Swansea, it is more than 75% of the prison population.
How much space should a prisoner have? The answer is not easy to find. The Prison Service instructions and frameworks provide no minimum measurements for cells, but the EU’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) recommends that a multi-occupancy cell should provide at least 4 sq metres of living space per prisoner, not including a sanitary facility.
The HM Prisons Inspectorate calculates that, as a sanitary facility is about 1-2 sq metres, the cell should offer 4.5 sq metres per person. In 2017, they found that the majority of cells they inspected that year did not meet this standard.
Small shared cells are more frequently found in Victorian prisons. In a shared cell measured at HMP Brixton each prisoner had 3.36 sq metres of space – about the size of a small elevator.
Cramming prisoners in cells means being creative with the use of space. Guidance for arranging furniture in single cells that need to house more than one prisoner shows how a typical Victorian-built single cell might be arranged when shared by two people. This diagram from the 2012 Prison Service instruction shows stacked beds placed across from small wardrobes with a screen dividing the sleeping area and the toilet.
The Ministry of Justice said this diagram was no longer applicable as the 2012 PSI was superseded by a 2022 accommodation framework. This new framework does not provide minimum measurement requirements for cells, however.
What are the effects of overcrowding?
HM Inspectorate of Prisons found in surveys conducted in 2017 that while some prisoners had positive experiences of cell-sharing, for others it caused stress.
One of the inmates quoted in the the report said: “Being forced to share a single cell with strangers, whilst also having to use broken, uncurtained toilets; eat one’s meals in this environment; and sometimes being locked up for over 20 hours a day is not respectful or humane.”
Architect Roland Karthaus, author of a study on prison design that won a Riba award in 2018, said lack of personal space in overcrowded single cells was particularly damaging because it was persistent.
He said: “If you’re standing in a tube carriage and your personal space shrinks to accommodate, that is stressful. But you can cope quite happily with being stressed for a short period of time on the tube. If you are in an environment – with severely limited personal space – for the majority of the day, every single day, you have no relief from it, and the cumulative effect is really damaging.”
At least two Dutch studies have found that prisoners housed in double rooms experienced more distant and less frequent staff-prisoner interactions, as well as less perceived privacy, more health problems and more prisoner misconduct.
A US study found that single-cell inmates exhibited lower levels of the hormones related to the “flight or flight” response than those who shared a dormitory.
Karthaus suggests that these kinds of conditions can inhibit the prospect of rehabilitation.
He said: “The prevalence of physical ill health, drug and substance abuse in people coming into prison is higher than average in the population. So you’re taking unwell people, and you’re putting them in an environment that makes them more unwell – and then your aim is that they will enter society in an improved way.
“The environment that essentially contributes to people’s poor health is working against that.”
‘The best hope of leading a good and useful life on release is someone to love you, somewhere to live and something to do’
Victorian prisons were originally built in the outskirts of towns and cities. But as cities grew, they absorbed them. So currently, 70% of the Victorian prisons currently in operation are within the boundaries of major towns and cities.
This means the average immediate surroundings of Victorian prisons are 3.5 times more populated than non-Victorian prisons.
As these prisons have become enclosed in cities, they are difficult to expand, which restricts the opportunity to provide better green spaces and outdoor facilities. Their proximity to urban centres also facilitates the importation of drugs, knives and potentially firearms into prisons via drones, through the bars.
Nevertheless, the picture is nuanced as newer facilities built further away from community and families have their own limitations when it comes to rehabilitation.
A prison review conducted by Lord Farmer looked into the importance of prisoners’ family ties to prevent reoffending and reduce intergenerational crime in 2017. It recommended that prisoners should be held in community prisons as near to their homes as possible, citing a Ministry of Justice report that found that the odds of reoffending were 39% higher for prisoners who had not received visits compared with those who had.
It said: “The closure of some of the old Victorian jails creates significant scope for change in this area, but has the major downside of removing prisoners further from their communities and making it harder for families to visit.”
Frances Crook, former CEO of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said proximity to community was vital for rehabilitation. She said: “[Victorian prisons] are close to people’s families, to local services including housing and health, and can be supported by voluntary organisations. They also feel local to the men detained in them.
“They are all going to be released sooner or later and as we all know, the best hope of leading a good and useful life on release is someone to love you, somewhere to live and something to do. All this is more achievable if people reside in prisons local to their city homes.”
Most Victorian prisons are category B or local, so they are the first option for people sentenced or on remand who have been taken directly from court in their local area. This means many people spend their first night in incarceration in a Victorian prison. Some academics make the case for turning local prisons into open ones, known as category D jails.
Prof Dominique Moran, who has extensively studied Victorian prisons and has presented her findings to a parliamentary committee, said: “Our open prisons tend to be in out-of-town locations – rural locations – where there’s not a ready supply of things that incarcerated people working towards reintegration can do.
“Arguably, there would be all sorts of advantages in having open prisons closer to urban areas. And if you have people in open prisons, by definition, they’re not in their cell all day long. So they would only be coming to these cells to sleep, and that would be minimising the amount of time that they spend in them.”
Moran also said the nearness to urban centres made staff easier to recruit and retain than in isolated places.
Sight lines and feelings of safety
The legacy of the panopticon
It will be observed that the Wings or Divisions containing the Cells being connected with the centre, the whole interior of the prison and the door of every cell are seen from one central point. The stairs … do not impede a clear view being obtained … and every movement within the prison, whether of an officer or a prisoner, is therefore under constant observation and control.
From the Report of the Surveyor-General of Prisons on the construction, ventilation, and details of Pentonville Prison, 1844
The typical K-shaped Victorian prison had wings of small, single cells arranged along landings three or more storeys high, around a central hub from where one single prison officer had clear sight of all the prisoners.
You can explore this type of space from the inside with the following 360 view of HMP Reading, which closed in 2014.
The K-block may be a feature of Victorian design, but its appeal among both prisoners and staff seems to remain. One study linked the long galleries and good sight lines to feelings of safety.
Moran said: “Not everybody has exactly the same opinion, but a lot of staff talk about the safety that comes from good visibility, and that they get very attuned to the acoustics of that building – they can hear one another talking or shouting or whatever is going off, which means that staff feel confident operating that space.
“That translates into incarcerated people also feeling that the staff can see what’s going on and feeling more confident in that environment.”
Her study also found that “in Victorian-era prisons, staff were more likely to be out on the landings interacting with incarcerated people, with the result that they knew them better and were better able to support rehabilitation”.
However, the philosophy of the Victorian model once again rubs up against the realities of the modern day estate when it comes to maintenance and accessibility. Narrow landings, steep staircases, and the difficulty of installing lifts are problematic for an ageing prisoner population, meaning they have fewer opportunities to leave their wing.
The number of people in prison aged 50 or over has nearly trebled, rising from about 5,000 in 2003 to about 15,000 in 2024.
Despite its Victorian focus on surveillance, the K-block design has endured. The distinctive blueprint is still used for modern prisons such as HMP Berwyn in Wales, the second largest prison in the UK, which was built in 2017.
“Even in our very newest facilities, we have built Victorian hub-spoke, galleried prisons, just like those built for the separate system, but now in concrete, and with integrated plumbing and wiring”, says a study on prison design by Karthaus.
Temperature and sound stress
Nineteenth-century prisons can be ‘incredibly noisy and distressing’ for autistic people
So admirably is the ventilation of the building contrived and kept up, that there is not the least sense of closeness pervading it, for we feel, immediately we set foot in the place, how fresh and pure is the atmosphere in there.
From a description of Pentonville Prison in The Great World of London by Henry Mayhew, 1865
Victorian prisons have been altered in many ways throughout the years: sanitation facilities and electricity have been installed, wings have been extended, wire netting has been extended over galleries to prevent suicide, and more recently, anti-drone nets have been installed to stop drug deliveries.But retrofitting modern heating and ventilation standards into 19th-century buildings is difficult, and as a result, prisoners can be subject to uncomfortable temperatures and sound stress, which, like other stressors within the environment, affect wellbeing and can have implications for rehabilitation.
For the Victorians, suppressing all communication between prisoners was vital. Soundproofing was considered essential and walls were made to be 18 inches or “two bricks and half” thick.
These thick walls take time to warm up in the winter, and in the summer, they retain and radiate heat. A 2017 report on living conditions from HMIP found that in some Victorian prisons “windows could not be opened properly and cells were poorly ventilated. In summertime, some prisoners reported that they break windows that cannot be opened in order to provide ventilation”.
The Victorians had built a ventilation system featuring stoves in the basement that supplied warm air through iron vents in the cell floors, and the foul air was carried off through vents above the cell doors. But according to a Howard League for Penal Reform report into Victorian prisons, alterations and fire safety regulations have meant that many cell vents have been blocked.
While the impact of poor temperature regulation has not been studied in prisons, studies of office environments identify thermal comfort as “one of the leading factors impacting general satisfaction with indoor environments.” Apart from the physiological responses, “extreme temperatures have been found to impact our affinity for those around us, and have even been linked to behavioural outcomes such as aggression”.
Karthaus’s study on prison design states that “there is some evidence to suggest that people are more likely to help others under more optimal temperature conditions (relative to season). The relationship between temperature, emotional state, and pro- or antisocial behaviour is a complex one, but there is strong overarching evidence for the wellbeing benefits of thermal comfort.”
Karthaus has also pointed to the use of hard materials with poor acoustic absorption as another factor which can cause prisoner discomfort.
The lack of sound absorption in an environment where shouts and bangs persistently ring out means even indistinct noises echo over time, creating a maddening echo chamber of muffled sound. It can even encourage prisoners to be louder.
Karthaus said: “When you have very high reverberation time in a space, it means that nobody can hear what anyone is saying, so everyone is shouting all of the time. If you’re in an environment that is continuously noisy all of the time, and you cannot escape from the noise, that is deeply damaging.”
Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, said that in particular, 19th-century jails could be “incredibly noisy and distressing” for many prisoners who demonstrate symptoms of autism.
He said: “Lots of prisoners have got autistic spectrum disorder and therefore you know that that incredible racket that you get in those prisons is really unconducive to any sort of rehabilitative work.”
What now for our 19th-century prisons?
Ministers despair at the state of the prison estate across England and Wales, and the crumbling Victorian jails that still house more than a quarter of inmates.
After July’s general election, evidence of neglect and dilapidation was everywhere and has been backed by reports from Taylor, the prisons watchdog. He uncovered examples of rat and pigeon infestations, damp and mould. Walls at HMP Winchester were so wet that prisoners could remove their own cell doors or dig through with plastic cutlery.
But in the short to medium term, Victorian prisons must be kept open, officials have said. Why? Because current projections show that the prison population is predicted to reach 100,000 by 2029.
There is no way that the speed of Ministry of Justice’s building programme will mean that any of the 19th-century prisons could be closed by 2029.
Instead, the government has committed to refurbishing the Victorian estate, which officials claim will “bring around 1,000 cells into the 21st century”.
By the end of this year, it also expects to bring back online about 350 places in Victorian prisons that are out of use. New prisons are being built while new blocks are being added to existing prisons. The government has set itself a target of building 14,000 more prison places by 2031.
In March, the category C jail HMP Millsike was opened in East Yorkshire for 1,500 inmates.
Unlike Victorian prisons, it includes workshops and training facilities aimed at getting offenders into work on release and reinforced barless windows to deter drone activity, hundreds of CCTV cameras and X-ray body scanners.
Another 700 places are being built at HMP Highpoint near Haverhill, Suffolk, which will make it the largest prison in the UK.
At the same time, a review of sentencing by former Tory justice secretary David Gauke is expected to recommend in late spring including scrapping shorter sentences and treating more offenders in the community alternatives to jail.
And so Victorian prisons will remain in use for many years along with their associated problems.
Additional credits
Header video: Getty Images/British Film Institute
Prisoners looking out a window in a cell: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
Aerial photo of HMP Cardiff: David Goddard/Getty Images
360 degree view photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Row of barred windows at HMP Wandsworth: Andrew Aitchison/Corbis/Getty ImagesNote: While there are officially 32 Victorian prisons in use, HMP Dartmoor is currently closed.
