Life behind bars in Britain’s surviving Victorian prisons – photo essay

What is now HMP Lincoln opened at the end of the most prolific period of prison construction in British history, when 90 prisons were built or significantly expanded between 1842 and 1877. Here, observes the introductory essay to Incarcerated, “was the Victorian faith in ‘progress’, rendered in bricks and mortar and applied to the challenge of remaking those who had set themselves against law and society”.

• John, from E wing at HMP Lincoln, has dementia and spends his days shouting and screaming in his cell. When he gets out into the exercise yard he sits in silence and enjoys the space, fresh air and sunshine

Less than 50 years later, in their 1922 study English Prisons Today: Being the Report of the Prison System Enquiry Committee, Stephen Hobhouse and Fenner Brockway argued: “The only reform to which [these Victorian] buildings can be usefully subjected is dynamite.”

Despite the continued power of this critique, today prisons such as HMP Lincoln and HMP Liverpool seem as permanent as ever. More than 30 remain in use, collectively holding about a quarter of the UK’s prison population.

• HMP Wandsworth, clockwise from top left: prisoners return from their jobs to their wings for lunch; an area known as the central star, which leads to all original wings of the prison; cell windows in D wing; a prisoner stands outside his cell on C wing

Andy Aitchison has been taking photographs inside Britain’s prisons for more than 20 years. His interest began in 2004 when he was asked by the Big Issue to photograph inside HMP Wandsworth, another Victorian prison.

• A view of wing A, HMP Wandsworth. This wing has suicide netting between each floor. The prison, in south-west London, was built in 1851 and is one of the largest jails in western Europe. It can accommodate 1,456 prisoners

He later told Time Out: “I went on to one of the wings and there was the usual shouting, but when I got to the radio room it was like a bit of a sanctuary. Once the guys stepped in there, it was a work environment and they became almost different people.

• HMP Lincoln, left to right: men from E wing return to their cells after time in the exercise yard; prisoners line up to get food in the canteen on A wing

“I enjoyed it so much that after the shoot, I got in touch to ask if I could go back to make more pictures. I went 10 or 15 times over a six-month period. I started meeting guys the same age as me, who had a kid like me – they were in the same situation in life as me, but they were in prison and I wasn’t.”

• Kev reads a book in his cell on E wing, HMP Lincoln

Since that assignment, Aitchison has photographed nearly 50 prisons, often making repeat visits as he works on long-term projects. His work has been used extensively by charities and published nationally and internationally. He regularly contributes to Inside Time, the UK’s leading prison newspaper.

• HMP Lincoln, left to right: suicide netting in the main central atrium of A wing; a prisoner walks down stairs next to the first night centre

Aitchison has to work under strict conditions. His equipment is searched on entry and exit, consent forms must be signed by any prisoner he photographs, and certain objects – keys, locks, fence numbers – must never be pictured.

Faces of the prisoners are not shown: in order to publish a photograph of a serving prisoner, explicit permission from the Ministry of Justice is required.

• Robert, 77, sits in his wheelchair outside his cell at HMP Lincoln. His chair does not fit through his cell door on C wing

The images in Incarcerated are part of continuing research on the long afterlives of Britain’s Victorian prison estate by geographers, criminologists and historians. Together they explore how the fabric and function of prisons built in the 19th century have changed over time, the tensions between architectural obsolescence and persistence, and what it has felt like to live and work in Victorian prisons then and now.

• Clockwise from top left: two men look through the window in their cell door on K wing, HMP Liverpool; the single-occupancy exercise yard for the Care and Support Unit wing inside HMP Lincoln; suicide netting on E wing of HMP Lincoln; two staff members vape during a lunch break against the brick wall of an outer perimeter fence at HMP Lincoln

Presented in conversation with essays written by members of the project team, Aitchison’s photographs form a unique portrait of Britain’s still-functioning Victorian prisons, and those who live and work in them.

• Incarcerated is available direct from the publisher Bluecoat Press