science

Slopping out

Slopping out is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Slopping out rather than just read about it. In short: Slopping out is the manual emptying of human waste when prison cells are unlocked in the morning. Inmates without a flush toilet in the cell have to use other means (formerly a chamber pot, then a bucket, now often a chemical toilet) while locked in during the night.

Key takeaways

Slopping out belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Slopping out to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Slopping out from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Slopping out is the manual emptying of human waste when prison cells are unlocked in the morning. Inmates without a flush toilet in the cell have to use other means (formerly a chamber pot, then a bucket, now often a chemical toilet) while locked in during the night. The reason that some cells in UK prisions do not have toilets is that they date from the Victorian era and were therefore not designed with plumbing. As a result, there is no space in which to put a toilet, together with the expense and difficulty of installing the necessary pipes.

Dirty protest During the late 1970s, Provisional IRA volunteers protested against conditions of internment at HM Prison Maze by refusing to slop out and instead smearing their faeces on the cell walls. This was later referred to as the dirty protest, part of several acts of disobedience within the "H-Blocks" culminating in the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike.

Phasing out

Slopping out was allegedly abolished in England and Wales by 1996, although Private Eye in 2011 reported that Prisons Inspector Nick Hardwick stated that it still persisted at HMP Gloucester. It was scheduled to be abolished in Scotland by 1999. Due to budget restraints the abolition was delayed, and by 2004 prisoners in five of Scotland's sixteen prisons still had to slop out. Slopping out ended in HM Young Offenders Institution Polmont in 2007, leaving HM Prison Peterhead as the last Scottish prison where prisoners did not have access to plumbing; 300 prisoners had to use chemical toilets due to the difficulty of installing modern plumbing in the prison's granite structure. Peterhead ultimately closed in December 2013. Slopping out is still in practice in prisons in the Republic of Ireland. Speaking at the launch of the Irish Human Rights Commission's Annual Report for 2009, the Green Party Junior Minister for Integration Mary White said it was time to move on from the Victorian practice. Slopping out was eradicated in Dublin's Mountjoy Prison by the end of 2013 and in Cork Prison in 2016. However, the practice continues at Limerick Prison.

Other A "potwalloper" was a trusty prisoner who made sure the buckets were emptied and cleaned each morning. He did not do the cleaning himself, but he was responsible for making sure that other prisoners did.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Slopping out

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Slopping out claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Slopping out before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Slopping out ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Slopping out

In research: Slopping out appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Slopping out in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Slopping out is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Imprisonment and detention, Toilets, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Slopping out outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Slopping out in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Slopping out means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Slopping out out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Slopping out in simple terms?

Why does Slopping out matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Slopping out?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Slopping out.