Kingston Prison was originally built in 1877 as a Victorian radial design prison. Kingston has had a varied history. At one point the building was used for a boys' borstal, and then became a police station during World War II.
In 1965 capital punishment for murder was abolished in Britain and, as a result, Kingston began exclusively to hold inmates serving life sentences. Kingston became the only prison in England and Wales to have a unit exclusively for elderly male prisoners serving life sentences