Edward Marston The National Archives, £18

From the building of the Tower of London in 1068 to the last executions in 1964, Edward Marston’s Prison is a compelling historical tour of punishment in Britain since the Norman Conquest.

Drawing upon a wealth of information from the national archives, Marston focuses mainly on the stories of some of the most unfortunate victims of the system to illustrate the conditions found in our prisons. At a relatively brief 240 pages, Prison offers more a series of snapshots of life inside than a detailed examination of incarceration and, as a writer mainly of crime and mystery fiction, Marston brings a highly engaging style to his subject matter, resulting in a very readable book that should appeal to a wide audience.

Marston once worked in the modern prison system as a drama teacher, and his revulsion at the iniquities commonplace in the past clearly shows. Accounts of racking in the Tower during Tudor times give way to Victorian floggings and the scandalous treatment of the suffragettes. Readers might be shocked to discover the extent to which prisons were historically run as profit-making ventures – as of course some are now – though then inmates were charged fees on arrival and release, and starved if they failed to pay or beg for food. They were also charged for the dubious and involuntary ‘privilege’ of wearing irons during their time behind bars.

Among his criticisms of conditions within the system, Marston reserves special condemnation for executions and the institution of debt imprisonment.

The stories of incompetent executioners and bungled hangings are chilling. Debtors could be locked up on little more than the whim of their creditors, and the fee-based nature of prisons typically led only to an increase in the indebtedness. The injustice of men who had been acquitted after time spent on remand finding themselves back in gaol because they were unable to pay the charges associated with their imprisonment inspired the campaigning career of the great reformer John Howard.

As enlightening and well-written as it is, Prison suffers from looking at too long a stretch of history in only limited detail. Marston does little to examine British historical and social conditions or attitudes during the periods studied, so offers scarce insight into whether the institutions reflected wider society.

Likewise, the size of the book leaves little scope for comparison between practices here and abroad. Not unreasonably, given the nature of the work, the author focuses on the conditions experienced by the inmates, rather than the crimes which lead to their imprisonment, but this can produce the impression that those within the system were undeserving victims.

Immersed in a censorious account of the prison environment, the reader might be tempted to forget that the aim of the system was, after all, to punish and deter.

Ben Gallagher is a history teacher and was until recently a commercial lawyer