Stern, Vivien

PERSONAL: Female.

ADDRESSES: Home—30 Goldhurst Terrace, London NW6 3HU, England. Office—International Centre for Prison Studies, 3rd Floor, 26-29 Drury Lane, London WC2B 5RL, England. E-mail—vivien.stern@bushinternet.com.

CAREER: Writer. International Centre for Prison Studies, King's College, London, London, England, senior research fellow. Former director, National Council for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, London. Penal Reform International, honorary secretary general, beginning 1989.

MEMBER: West London Law Society (senior vice-president; president 2002–03).

AWARDS, HONORS: Named commander, Order of the British Empire; honorary doctorate of law from Bristol University and Oxford Brookes University; honorary fellow, London School of Economics.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(Edited, with Susan Gardiner) A Second Chance: Further Education in Multi-racial Areas, Community Relations Commission (London, England), 1976.

(With Vivienne Coombe) A Home from Home?: Some Policy Considerations on Black Children in Residential Care, Community Relations Commission (London, England), 1977.

(With Cathy Carmichael) The Multi-racial Community: A Guide for Local Councillors, Community Relations Commission (London, England), 1977.

(With Sue Wallis) Caring for Under-Fives in a Multiracial Society, Commission for Racial Equality (London, England), 1978.

Failures in Penal Society, Manchester Statistical Society (Manchester, England), 1987.

Bricks of Shame: Britain's Prisons, Penguin Books (New York, NY), 1987, 2nd updated edition, 1993.

Imprisoned by Our Prisons: A Programme of Reform, Hutchinson (London, England), 1988.

"Deprived of Their Liberty," Caribbean Rights (St. Michael, Barbados), 1990.

Creativity in Captivity, National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (London, England), 1992.

A Sin against the Future: Imprisonment in the World, Northeastern University Press (Boston, MA), 1998.

Alternatives to Prison in Developing Countries, International Centre for Prison Studies (London, England), 1999.

(Editor) Sentenced to Die?: The Problem of TB in Prisons in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, International Centre for Prison Studies (London, England), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: A British prison reformer and senior research fellow at the International Centre for Prison Studies at King's College, London, Vivien Stern is the author of numerous books on incarceration worldwide. Her work on prison reform has taken her to over forty countries to examine alternatives to prisons. In Bricks of Shame: Britain's Prisons Stern focuses on the prisons of her native country and the problems that the system is facing.

Overcrowding is at the top of the list of problems facing British prisons. Added to this are an aging prison population and skyrocketing costs of incarceration, as well as a subsequent inability to reform or rehabilitate prisoners. Stern makes the case that Britain's prison system needs reforming, noting that the Prison Act of 1865 established the principle of one prisoner per cell. At the time of the updated edition of Stern's book, however, 4,000 prisoners in Britain were living three to a cell and a further 1,300 were two to a cell. Sanitation in such situations is insufficient.

Stern also makes the point that 100,000 children in any given year will have a parent—usually a father—in prison, and that in 1985 almost 10,000 people were in prison simply awaiting trial. Stern argues that in fact it would be cheaper to build more schools than more prisons, thereby giving more people a chance to avoid becoming criminals. Stern further proposes a prison system that focuses on rehabilitation rather than simple incarceration and punishment. Reviewing Bricks of Shame in the Times Educational Supplement, Simon Newton felt that Stern builds a "strong humane case which requires an immense effort of lobbying and educating." A critic for London's Observer praised Bricks of Shame, writing that Stern "puts it all down, devastating and irrefutably."

In A Sin against the Future: Imprisonment in the World Stern broadens her scope, examining the prison systems of many countries. A reviewer for the Economist stated that she "takes the reader on a tour of the expanding netherworld of prisons" in what the critic called a "meticulously documented, clearly written book." Part of Stern's thesis is that many of those behind bars do not, in fact, belong there. Most have not been convicted of violent crimes, but instead of minor offenses. In prison they are treated to harsh and dangerous conditions that often turn such minor offenders into hardened criminals. Incarceration, for Stern, is not effective and not humane. She presents alternatives to the traditional prison system, highlighting the New Zealand and Quebec systems that experiment with non-custodial sentences, victim compensation, and reconciliation.

David A. Sklansky, assessing A Sin against the Future for the Journal of Interdisciplinary History, wrote that Stern "succeeds admirably" in getting readers to stop taking the status quo in prison systems for granted. Debra L. Delaet, writing in Perspectives on Political Science, dubbed the book a "comprehensive overview of problems associated with modern imprisonment," and added that Stern "makes a compelling case" for reform.

America reviewer Gerald F. Uelmen examined Stern's sections in A Sin against the Future that deal with the prison system in the United States and pointed out that only Russia surpasses the United States in its incarceration rate. Stern's comparison of U.S. prisons with labor camps in Russia and the dungeons of Africa "expose how low we have actually sunk," according to Uelmen, who went on to note, "We are creating a 'prison-industrial complex' in America that has a vested interest in continuing our present course. This book should convince us of the serious dangers of that course." Washington Post contributor Colman McCarthy also discussed Stern's researches on the American penal system and headed off possible critics of her assessments by commenting that Stern is "too careful a researcher and too experienced an observer to be faddishly dismissed as a soft-on-crime liberal." Instead, McCarthy opined, "She is hard on crime, starting with the politically acceptable one that allows people to be locked up who are no danger at all to pubic safety."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

America, May 22, 1999, Gerald F. Uelmen, "Where Prisons Fail," review of A Sin against the Future: Imprisonment in the World, p. 34.

Economist (US), May 16, 1998, review of A Sin Against the Future, p. S8.

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, winter, 2000, Bard R. Feerrall, review of A Sin against the Future, p. 731.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, spring, 2000, David A. Sklansky, review of A Sin against the Future, p. 643.

Observer (London, England), November 21, 1993, review of Bricks of Shame: Britain's Prisons, p. 18.

Perspectives on Political Science, summer, 1999, Debra L. Delaet, review of A Sin against the Future, p. 169.

Times Educational Supplement, August 14, 1987, Simon Newton, review of Bricks of Shame, p. 17.

Times Literary Supplement, December 18, 1998, Adrian Poole, review of A Sin against the Future, p. 27.

Washington Post, January 4, 1999, Colman McCarthy, "Some Liberating Thoughts on the Problems with Prisons," p. C4.

ONLINE

International Centre for Prison Studies Web site, http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/rel/icps/ (March 28, 2005), "Vivien Stern."

Northeastern University Press Web site, http://www.nupress.neu.edu/ (March 28, 2005), "Vivien Stern."

Oxford Brookes University Web site, http://www.brookes.ac.uk/ (March 28, 2005), "Baroness Vivien Stern."