When the Tories came to power in 1979, fighting crime was high on the agenda. There was even a flirtation with the idea of restoring capital punishment, which Thatcher was understood to favour. But the landmark policy was the introduction of the so-called Short Sharp Shock regime with special detention centres imposing military-style discipline on…
Liverpool had seen massive riots in 1981 and now Prime Minister Thatcher and the establishment needed to react as Tony McMahon discovers
Short Sharp Shock was a prison regime introduced by the Conservative government in the early 1980s for young people that was brutal and didn’t work
Veteran right-winger Enoch Powell placed the race card cynically after the 1981 riots trying to blame those from the New Commonwealth
