{"id":25465,"date":"2024-08-01T14:25:42","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T13:25:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=25465"},"modified":"2024-08-01T14:25:42","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T13:25:42","slug":"roasline-crone-britain-behind-bars-a-secret-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/arts-social-sciences\/roasline-crone-britain-behind-bars-a-secret-history\/","title":{"rendered":"OU historian provides timely expertise to Channel 4\u2019s Britain Behind Bars"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Open University\u2019s Head of History Rosalind Crone<\/a> recently shared her many years of research into prison history to help make Channel 4\u2019s Britain Behind Bars: A Secret History. <\/em><\/p>\n

The series airing on Sunday evenings at 9pm on Channel 4, and available to watch in full on My4<\/a>, follows barrister and TV personality Rob Rinder\u2019s investigations into the history of Britain\u2019s most notorious prisons: Dartmoor, Shrewsbury, and Shepton Mallet.<\/p>\n

Rosalind worked as a consultant on the series, helping to shape the approach and overarching narrative about the history of punishment and its relevance to prisons today.<\/p>\n

She was also interviewed on screen for Episode 3, which covers the history of short-term imprisonment at Shepton Mallet.<\/p>\n

Rosalind drew on 19th <\/sup>century records from Shepton Mallet to highlight the use of corporeal punishment and describes the harsh and irreversible physical toll of so-called \u2018hard labour\u2019, characterised by gruelling hours spent on Shepton Mallet\u2019s penal treadmill.<\/p>\n

She said about her input in the series: \u201cThe aim was to demonstrate how time and again, the perceived need to punish overshadowed and stymied attempts to rehabilitate prisoners, a core aim of imprisonment even in the 19th<\/sup> century.\u201d<\/p>\n

The series comes at a critical time when prisons are once again in the headlines. It also draws parallels with more modern accounts of troubled prisons, such as the riots at Dartmoor in 1990, and called on personal histories of still-living former prisoners, governors, wardens, and other academic experts.<\/p>\n

Rosalind\u2019s work has long been centred on bringing a historical perspective to modern-day understanding of the utilisation, and experience, of imprisonment\u00a0in Britain.<\/p>\n

On her involvement with the series, Rosalind added: \u201cFor more than 15 years, my research focus has been on prison history, beginning with an interest in reading in prisons, which quickly expanded into research on prisoner literacy, prison schools, the (complicated) 19th century prison system, prison reform, and most recently, labour or work in prisons.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was great to bring some of that knowledge to Channel 4 in producing Britain Behind Bars<\/em>, at this critical time for Britain\u2019s criminal justice system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Find out more about Rosalind\u2019s research on the OU and Arts Humanities Research Council funded website Prison History: https:\/\/www.prisonhistory.org\/about\/<\/a><\/p>\n

You can also see a short film she made for the OU about the penal treadmill that prisoners were forced to endure at\u00a0 Victorian prison treadmills – the brutal reality and the lessons for today (youtube.com)<\/a><\/p>\n

Watch Britain Behind Bars: A Secret History <\/em>on My4: https:\/\/www.channel4.com\/programmes\/britain-behind-bars-a-secret-history\/on-demand\/74956-003<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Open University\u2019s Head of History Rosalind Crone recently shared her many years of research into prison history to help make Channel 4\u2019s Britain Behind Bars: A Secret History. The series airing on Sunday evenings at 9pm on Channel 4, and available to watch in full on My4, follows barrister and TV personality Rob Rinder\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25471,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[860,1075,1525,1640],"class_list":["post-25465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-social-sciences","category-history","tag-faculty-of-fass","tag-history","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}