Former BBC home affairs correspondent Jon Silverman has challenged the common attribution of the phrase “prison is an expensive way of making bad people worse” to former home secretary Douglas Hurd. In a letter to the Guardian, Silverman argues that the line actually originated in a 1990 white paper published under Hurd’s successor, David Waddington, and was likely drafted by civil servant David Faulkner.
Origin of the misattributed quote
Silverman’s letter responds to a previous correspondence from Nik Wood, who had repeated the attribution in a letter about ever-lengthier prison sentences. According to Silverman, Wood made “two familiar mistakes” by crediting Hurd with the quote. The first error, Silverman notes, is that the phrase appeared in a white paper published in 1990 by Waddington, not Hurd. The second is that the original wording was not a declarative statement but a conditional warning: “prison can be an expensive way of making bad people worse” unless other rehabilitative measures are taken.
This distinction matters, Silverman says, because the original formulation carried a caveat about rehabilitation that the popular misquote omits. The white paper’s language suggested that prison could be ineffective or harmful without accompanying rehabilitative efforts, rather than making a blanket condemnation of imprisonment.
Who really wrote the line?
Silverman points out that Wood described Hurd as “an unlikely figure” to have authored such a thought. However, Silverman counters that Waddington—a hardliner who supported the return of capital punishment—was “far unlikelier” to have penned the line himself. Instead, Silverman suggests the true originator was David Faulkner, a civil servant described as “a liberal on penal matters.”
According to Silverman, Faulkner’s influence on crime and punishment policy ended with the arrival of Michael Howard as home secretary. This timeline supports the theory that Faulkner was responsible for the wording in the 1990 white paper, before Howard’s more punitive approach took hold.
Impact of the correction
The correction highlights how widely the misquoted version of the phrase has circulated in public discourse, often used to criticize prison policy. By tracing the line to its actual source, Silverman aims to set the record straight about both its authorship and its original conditional meaning.
Silverman’s letter concludes by inviting readers to share their own opinions on the matter via the Guardian’s letters section, as the newspaper continues to publish reader responses on criminal justice issues.
