In the first reading of Activity 17.1, David Fraser offers a highly controversial account of the Secure Estate in Britain that draws on ‘right realist’ ideas to suggest that ‘prison works’. Reflecting on the methodological, theoretical and political issues discussed in Block 3, evaluate the reliability and validity of this account. You should use your conclusion to explain why you agree or disagree with Fraser’s position.

Introduction
The notion that the prison institution has failed as an establishment has been gradually gaining some popularity in consideration of the recent times, especially in this ‘postmodern’ era, where society is becoming more open to the discourse and discussion of the deconstruction of our many traditional and long established components of civilization, such as our typical ‘correctional’ establishments, or prison facilities (Davis 2000). In fact, there is already what is commonly referred to as the ‘prison abolition movement’ which is a collective, but not necessarily organized, worldview that is inclined to subscribe to the belief that a society can function better without prisons, and without prisoners thus. This position is backed up by a comprehensive set of criticisms against the modern form or structure of the criminal justice mechanism, which is argued to be predominantly predisposed allow racism (Davis 2007), sexism and reinforcement of the disadvantages of being part of the lower economic class of the society. More importantly, the anti-prison discourse argues that the prison system is an ineffective and costly means of preventing crime and rehabilitating the criminals, and thus goes to advocate alternative forms of

Penalty such as those related to community service. Such a worldview is believed to have at least influenced the change in correctional policies of state governments in the last half decade, probably in