HMP Durham

HMP Durham

Durham Prison viewed from the main tower of the cathedral
Location	Durham, County Durham
Security class	Adult Male/Category B
Capacity	1017 as of 8th March 2011
Population	981 (as of October 2006)
Opened	19th century
Managed by	HM Prison Services
Governor	Tim Allen
Website	Durham at justice.gov.uk

HM Prison Durham is a Victorian era local Category B men's prison, located in the Elvet area of Durham in County Durham, England. Built in 1819, the prison continues to be operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service. Women prisoners were moved in 2005 due to overcrowding and suicides.

Durham Prison was built in 1810, consisting of some 600 cells and took its first prisoners in 1819. It is adjacent to Durham's Crown Courts. The prison has held a variety of different categories of prisoners, both male and female over the course of its history. Between 1869 and 1958, 95 judicial executions took place on the gallows at Durham prison or the court house. In 1832, protests over working conditions in the South Shields workhouse were supported by miner strikes. Soldiers were sent to evict striking miners from their pubs. One miner was convicted of the murder of a local magistrate near Jarrow Slake. He was hanged amid heightened security of 50 mounted Hussars and 50 infantrymen to protect the gallows. His body was gibbeted after death.

On 17 December 1958, the final execution took place when Private Brian Chandler (aged 20) was hanged for the murder of Martha Dodd during the course of theft. Chandler was a soldier, based at Catterick camp, who beat 83-year-old Dodd to death with a hammer.

During the late 1960s and 1970s the prison became a study project for Stan Cohen and Laurie Taylor, which led to their publication of three books, namely Psychological Survival: The Experience of Long-term Imprisonment (1972), Escape Attempts (1976) and Prison Secrets (1978). Cohen additionally published Visions of Social Control: Crime, Punishment and Classification (1985).