The Howard League and liberal colonial penality in mid-20th-century Britain: the death penalty in Palestine and the Kenya Emergency

On 2 June 1930, the Howard League for Penal Reform’s Colonial Subcommittee held its first meeting. At this time, the Howard League had a keen interest in international penal reform. The establishment of this subcommittee followed the opening of the Howard League’s International Bureau in Geneva a year previously, which had a special focus on prison conditions and aimed to get penal reform onto the agenda of the League of the Nations. The purpose of the Colonial Subcommittee was to gain an overview of penal administration in the colonies of the British Empire and to intervene to bring about improvements and modernisation. The subcommittee was argued to be necessary ‘especially in regard to the treatment of the natives’. In keeping with the Howard League’s priorities, the Colonial Subcommittee intended to maintain a focus on prison conditions, especially those for young people.