When in January 1932 a wave of unrest affected the prison estate, even this blow to public confidence over the direction of penal policy did not derail the impetus for reform. The ‘Dartmoor Mutiny’ as it was called was the most serious incident by far. ‘Mutiny’ was a word much in vogue and had been used of the action taken by sailors in the Royal Navy when they went on strike at Invergordon in September 1931. The economic slump was biting deep, spreading discontent. The nation was queasy.

Dartmoor, the most isolated prison in England, was suffering from neglect as well as from budgetary cuts occasioned by the depressed state of the country. Staff reductions accompanied rising prisoner numbers. As a convict prison it was a receptacle for serial offenders who had committed crimes of varying severity. Many were recidivist pests. Others were more dangerous, characterised or caricatured as ‘young, determined and adventurous’ gangsters. All added to the ‘quota of discontent’. The new governor, Stanley Roberts, was an unusual ap-pointment. He had risen from the ranks, and, more pertinently, he had no prior experience of convict prisons. In his eight months in office he had increased both security and labour productivity. For some time the prison had been simmering, and in the week prior to the mutiny there had been an attempted escape and an officer slashed with a razor blade. Roberts asked Major Lamb, the Senior Assistant Commissioner, for permission to call on police assistance if necessary. Permission was given, and Colonel Turner, Lamb's colleague who knew Dartmoor well, rushed there to advise and assist. On Sunday 24th January the place erupted in an orgy of destruction and violence, during which officers and prisoners were injured (some by other prisoners), records were burnt, and the administrative block was gutted by fire. It culminated in an assault on Turner, who was rescued by the intervention of a convicted murderer called George Donovan. The riot was quelled. No one was killed. No one escaped.