Britain Behind Bars: A Secret History review – the inside story of a broken, brutal prison system

What is the fundamental function of prison? The jury is out on whether it is retribution, rehabilitation or protecting the public. But in recent years, with a more complex understanding of mental health, addiction and the criminalisation of poverty, its role in supposedly civilised society has been called into question. While Tory cabinet after Tory cabinet has forged the path of more punitive sentences, many people – myself included – have been questioning the purpose of increasing mass incarceration. Many of us have been calling for a shift towards a more Scandinavian model, which would abandon the rampant overpopulation of our prisons and shift the focus on to helping criminals to become fully contributing members of their communities. It’s a particularly relevant question given that, within days of the election, prisons were said to be so full they were at breaking point , prompting Labour to announce an early release scheme – and possibly even rethink their whole approach to incarceration, given the appointment of James Timpson as prisons minister .

Even though Britain Behind Bars: A Secret History hasn’t shifted my stance on the matter, presenter Rob Rinder’s approach to the subject leads to a far more interesting programme than my own hand-wringing liberalism would have done. The lawyer and broadcaster has a fundamental belief in the legal system and sees these institutions as serving a crucial purpose – but comes to it with curiosity and empathy for inmates past and present. Over three episodes, he looks into three of Britain’s most famous prisons – Dartmoor, Shrewsbury and Shepton Mallet – and interviews experts and former residents of the institutions. In the case of Dartmoor, he believes it is “Britain’s Alcatraz”, an imposing, isolated place that was the site of an infamous riot in 1990 in which a prisoner up on the roof loudly decried the “brutality of this place” – one where stabbings were rife and the inmates spent most of their lives without human contact, being let out of their cells only to empty their buckets of human waste.

Shrewbury’s legacy is even darker, being a prison that was notorious for its association with the Pierrepoint family, a line of prolific public executioners who, across the generations, took a disturbing level of pride in their work until their last hanging, in 1956. As one of Shrewsbury’s former residents says, incredulously: “How [did] they sleep at night? I know I’ve been a bit of a nut job in my time, but I can’t imagine hanging 10 people by Wednesday.”

Finally, the series examines the prisons that were geared towards locking up petty criminals – specifically Shepton Mallet, best known as the place that temporarily incarcerated the Krays in the 1950s. Despite Rinder’s faith in a justice system that has defined his professional life, he views Shepton Mallet as being not just overly punitive but a place that created more criminality than it prevented.

The programme’s approach is thoughtful and thorough. Rinder and his team connect the past and the present, showing the terrible parallels between the experiences of contemporary inmates and those who were locked up in the same cells many decades before. The edit may initially seem a little chaotic as it cuts between Rinder and interviews with former prisoners and the experts trawling through archives, but there proves to be a method here as a thorough account is built up of a justice system that has vacillated between the well-intentioned and the desperately cruel. There are a few moments of dark humour, with Rinder explaining how seriously theft was taken in the Georgian era and that even exacting violence against livestock was punishable by death. One former inmate of Shrewsbury even displays some impeccable comic timing: “Not being funny, but if you stole a sheep nowadays you wouldn’t be executed for it … You might get a visit from the RSCPA.”

Such moments of levity are sparse, no doubt appropriately so. Rinder is deeply disturbed to discover the pride that people took in their work as floggers and executioners, particularly as his family endured the Holocaust and the banal evil of those just following orders. As he says: “It’s a really interesting thing when we think about capital punishment – and the work people do if they don’t think too deeply about the moral issues around them. If it’s … just doing a job, … the human being who is killed is irrelevant to the work.”

The series’ title fails to convey the serious nuance that the documentary brings to its subject. Nor does it do justice to the harrowing moment when Rinder absorbs the contents of a letter from a member of the Pierrepoint family that implores the then home secretary to help him fulfil his dreams of becoming a prolific executioner.

Rinder is clearly in inner turmoil as he pores over the facts, but nevertheless he remains committed to the justice system. His unease around the consequences for breaking the law lead to considered but compelling television and his approach seems to come down to his background in the field. As a lawyer, he never leaps to conclusions but meticulously inches forward based on confirmed evidence. Even when the prisoners interviewed for the programme advocate for the brutality they endured behind bars – claiming it helped them turn their lives around – Rinder proceeds with caution, unwilling to lend too much credence to a single anecdote in a sea of misery. Britain Behind Bars may not compel the masses to do away with the prison system altogether, but it presents solid evidence that can only further inform the debate.

• Britain Behind Bars is on Channel 4 and available online