Non-Criminal Prisons English Debtor's Prisons and Prisons of War; French War Prisons; American War Prisons with References to Those of Other Lands — Reading Notes

The Architecture of Confinement

Griffiths provides detailed descriptions of prison construction, revealing how design reflected purpose. At Dartmoor, built in 1806, the site was chosen for its plentiful water, gravel soil, and abundant granite. The prison consisted of seven stone blocks radiating from a central point, each with three stories: two for sleeping, the top for daytime living and exercise in inclement weather. The flooring resembled a ship's deck, with hard timbers and caulked seams. The blocks were enclosed by a circular palisade of stout iron bars, then two granite walls fourteen feet high and twenty-two feet apart, and finally a military road with sentry stages. The total cost was about £130,000. Such meticulous detail underscores the state's investment in separation and control.

Mutiny and the Limits of Authority

At Norman Cross, a prison for French prisoners of war, a serious mutiny erupted. Griffiths recounts how the governor, fearing the prisoners would break through the palisade, called in troops—mostly militia—who surrounded the enclosure. The central blockhouse commanded all yards, and the governor was urged to fire into them as a warning. A messenger was sent to Peterborough, returning with yeomanry. The prisoners did break through at one point but were met with bayonets and driven back under heavy fire. Nine escaped permanently; others were recaptured. The stern action crushed the mutiny, and the prison's later history was uneventful until it was emptied in 1814 after Napoleon's abdication. This episode illustrates the constant tension between prisoners' desperation and authorities' readiness to use lethal force.

The Scale of Incarceration

Griffiths quantifies the vast network of war prisons in England during the Napoleonic Wars. Nearly fifty thousand prisoners were held across the country: six thousand at Norman Cross, nearly ten thousand around Portsmouth (Forton prison and hulks), over five thousand at Portchester, more than four thousand at Stapleton near Bristol, and twenty-five hundred in Edinburgh (castle and Valleyfield). The hulks—old warships converted to prisons—were first used when the American War of Independence closed colonial shores to convict exile. Later, after the War of 1812, many American prisoners were confined in these 'loathsome places of durance.' The numbers alone convey the logistical and humanitarian challenge of housing so many non-criminal detainees.

Griffiths' work is valuable not only for its historical data but for its implicit question: what justifies a society imprisoning people who have broken no law? Readers should attend to the tension between the author's official perspective—he was, after all, a prison inspector—and the grim realities he records. The excerpts offer a starting point for examining how legal categories can mask coercion, and how architecture, discipline, and sheer numbers shape the experience of confinement.

I remember sitting in a library carrel, the hush broken only by page-turns, and coming across a line about poor souls locked away for owing bread. That weight—how systems define “crime”—haunted me until I found the same ache in The Criminal — Themes and Context The Criminal — Themes and Context, where guilt feels less like a fact, more like a story someone tells about you.