Prospects of Prison Riots

Abstract

Inevitably, some of the content of previous chapters has spilled over into the issues which concern this final chapter, namely the evaluation of prison riots. By ‘evaluation’ is meant examining the impact on prison riots of trends in penal policy and practice. This leads to a discussion of the future prospects of lessening the scale of prison riots, or even preventing them altogether.

Tyranny sets up its own echo-chamber; a void where confused signals buzz about at random; where a murmur or innuendo causes panic: so, in the end, the machinery of repression is more likely to vanish, not with war or revolution, but with a puff, or the voice of falling leaves …

(Chatwin, 1989, p. 120)