Strangeways Prison riot

The 1990 Strangeways Prison riot was a 25-day prison riot and rooftop protest at Strangeways Prison in Manchester, England. The riot began on 1 April 1990 when prisoners took control of the prison chapel, and the riot quickly spread throughout most of the prison. The riot and rooftop protest ended on 25 April when the final five prisoners were removed from the rooftop, making it the longest prison riot in British penal history. One prisoner was killed during the riot, and 147 prison officers and 47 prisoners were injured. Much of the prison was damaged or destroyed with the cost of repairs coming to £50 million.

The riot sparked a series of disturbances in prisons across England, Scotland and Wales, resulting in the British government announcing a public inquiry into the riots headed by Lord Woolf. The resulting Woolf Report concluded that conditions in the prison had been intolerable, and recommended major reform of the prison system. The Guardian newspaper described the report as a blueprint for the restoration of "decency and justice into jails where conditions had become intolerable".

Manchester's Strangeways Prison, which opened in 1868, was a "local prison" designed to hold prisoners from the surrounding area, mainly those on remand or serving sentences of less than five years. At the time of the riot, the main prison consisted of six wings connected by a central rotunda known as the Centre. Convicted adult prisoners were held in wings A, B, C and D, and convicted young offenders were held in E wing, which was physically separated from the Centre by gates. Convicted prisoners on Rule 43(a) were held on landings C1 and C2 of C wing, and remand prisoners on Rule 43(a) were held on the fourth landing on E wing. F wing contained administrative offices on the lower floor and the chapel on the upper floor. Remand prisoners were held in wings G, H, I and K of a separate prison, linked to the main prison through workshops and a kitchen. The Certified Normal Accommodation Figure for Strangeways, the number of prisoners the prison was designed to hold, was 970. The population of the prison had increased in the months before the riot, from 1,417 in January 1990 to a peak of 1,658 on 27 March. On 1 April, the prison contained 1,647 prisoners – about 925 convicted adult prisoners, 500 remand prisoners and 210 convicted young offenders.

...
Wikipedia