Kind and Usual Punishment by Jessica Mitford

Thatcherism was, thus, an ‘ideology’ in the sense used by Michael Freeden. Though Thatcherites took ideas from diverse sources, their political project had a single guiding purpose: the moral (and, secondarily, economic) rejuvenation of Britain. Its roots lay in personal sources (particularly Methodism), as well as home-grown discourses on poverty and a Hayekian fear of the state. A family-centred, moralistic individualism underpinned Thatcherite policies this individualism was not precisely congruent with that of neo-liberal theorists.

They attempted to marginalize the importance of state welfare for the middle classes, to re-invigorate the ‘bourgeois virtues’ which had flourished in Victorian Britain. Thatcherites focused instead on creating what they saw as a rational tax/benefit system which would provide a safety-net for the poor, but encourage effort and thrift. Between 19, Thatcher's Conservative party abandoned attempts to develop comprehensive, state-led, paternalistic schemes to tackle poverty. These were underpinned by a rational, economistic conception of human nature. In books and articles, they predicted that modern societies would soon drastically change or even dismantle the prison.2Īfter 1945, neo-liberal thinkers and think-tanks in the US and UK outlined different state welfare systems for the poor, such as Milton Friedman's negative income tax. For Irwin and other observers, the prison was a morally bankrupt institution. He spoke eloquently about the need to empower inmates. Having served time in the California system, he wrote insightful books on inmate social structure. For example, noted sociologist John Irwin proposed inmate unions. The 1970s saw a number of proposals to alter American punishment. Mitford was not alone in such speculations. Condemning it for its failure to rehabilitate or deter criminals, she discussed alternatives to imprisonment. At the end of her book, Mitford speculated about the abolition of the prison. She also described medical experiments on inmates, official brutality, and prison profiteering.

She revealed the coercive character of many rehabilitation programs. In 1973, British journalist Jessica Mitford wrote a remarkable exposé of American prisons (Kind and Usual Punishment: The Prison Business).

Kind and Usual Punishment by Jessica Mitford