History > 2007 > UK > Prisons (III)

The real prison numbers scandal

As the Government plans to build more jails,
the shocking state of crime and punishment
in Britain is revealed

Published: 06 December 2007
The Independent
By Nigel Morris,
Home Affairs Correspondent
 

The Government was accused yesterday of trying to build its way out of the prisons overcrowding crisis as it outlined its vision for the construction of three supersize jails which would bring the number of offenders behind bars to almost 100,000.

Despite stark reminders from penal reform experts that more people are already locked up in England and Wales than anywhere else in western Europe, Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, said he was pressing ahead.

The £1.2bn programme brought widespread condemnation from liberal campaigners through to seasoned prison officials, with penal reformers protesting that "cavernous warehouses on green-belt land" would do nothing to rehabilitate prisoners or to enhance security in the surrounding communities. Prison governors warned that the "super-jails", which would hold 2,500 offenders each, could be vulnerable to explosive riots.

The prison population now stands at almost 81,500, the highest figure on record and an increase of more than 20,000 in a decade. The Government is now planning for the prison capacity to rise to 96,000 by 2014. Its plans were unveiled as a new analysis by the Prison Reform Trust disclosed the disturbing scale of the problem. The soaring levels of imprisonment over the past decade were reflected in statistics which showed that, for every 100,000 of the population of England and Wales, 148 people are in prison, compared with 85 per 100,000 in France and 93 per 100,000 in Germany. The number of women inmates has increased from less than 2,000 in 1995 to 4,510 today.

The tendency for disproportionate numbers of prisoners to be drink or drug addicts was also emphasised, with 70 per cent of new prisoners having a drug problem and 63 per cent admitting to heavy drinking.

Perhaps the most worrying trend was that of prison suicide rates, particularly among young men. The suicide rate for men in prison is five times higher than in the population as a whole and 748 prisoners have taken their lives in a decade, the study calculated. The most recent was Liam McManus, an inmate at Lancaster Farms prison who was found hanged in his cell last week. He was 15 years old.

Despite accusations that the Government was pursuing "short-sighted" and "unsustainable" policies, Mr Straw insisted that the expansion was justified. He said: "Nobody likes locking up people unless it is necessary. But you have to have the prison places for dealing with criminals for whom community sentences are not appropriate."

Many observers were vehement in their criticism. "Building cavernous warehouses on green-belt land for people to lie on their bunks all day before being dumped into the community only to commit more crimes neither serves the taxpayer or past and future victims of crime," said Frances Crook, the director of the Howard League for Penal Reform.

Paul Cavadino, chief executive of the crime reduction charity Nacro, said trying to solve the crisis by simply building more prisons was a simplistic approach to reform which ignored fundamental questions over the effectiveness of imprisonment.

"Increasing the prison capacity to 96,000 is a depressing prospect," he said. "It will institutionalise this country's position as the prison capital of Europe and absorb vast resources which would be better spent on offenders' rehabilitation, crime prevention and victim support."

Concerns over the practical consequences of the prisons were also aired, with senior prison workers even warning that such large-scale systems ran the risk of mass riots.

Harry Fletcher, assistant general secretary of the probation union Napo, said: "It goes against all previous advice, which has been for smaller units close to where prisoners live. It would be difficult to find sites, obtain planning permission and manage and recruit staff." Juliet Lyon, the director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: "Pouring money into jumbo jails will engulf any sensible plans to reform the justice system. Everyone knows that giant institutions don't work."

The plans were drawn up by the government troubleshooter Lord Carter of Coles after he was called in for the third time in a decade for advice. At their heart is the construction of three massive prisons, described as " Titan" jails by Mr Straw. The first would open in 2012, with a further two expected by 2014. The most likely locations are in the South-east, the North-west and the West Midlands.

Ministers were advised by Lord Carter to force through planning permission for the "super-jails", which are likely to be run by private companies, as quickly as possible. The most dilapidated prisons, holding 5,000 inmates, would be shut after 2013.

Lord Carter warned that the service faced a more immediate problem, with a shortage of up to 3,000 prison places by next summer and up to 6,000 in 2009.

Mr Straw told MPs that a former RAF base at Coltishall in Norfolk would be converted into a prison. He confirmed he was also looking for a prison ship.

Lord Carter also urged adjustments to sentencing rules that would have the combined effect of reducing the prison population by between 3,500 and 4,500.

Nick Herbert, the shadow Justice Secretary, said the Carter report was a " devastating indictment" of the prison system.

What Jack Straw said

* Three 'Titan jails' to be built, opening 7,500 prison spaces

* Run-down jails across the UK housing a total of 5,000 inmates to be closed

* MoD base in Norfolk to be converted into a prison

* Search for a prison ship

* Sentences for minor offenders to be reviewed

* Setting up a Sentencing Commission to review "sentencing ranges" to be considered

    The real prison numbers scandal, I, 6.12.2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article3226395.ece

Blunkett and the mission

to South Africa that inspired

the strategy of 'super-prisons'

Published: 06 December 2007
The Independent
By James Macintyre

In 2003, Martin Narey, Britain's first commissioner for correctional services and former head of the Prison Service, flew to South Africa to "think the unthinkable" on prisons. He was reporting to the Home Secretary of the day, David Blunkett, who was known to be frustrated by the inability of his department to counter headlines about prison overcrowding.

Completing his tour of a faceless, sprawling 3,000-space jail run by Group 4 at Bloemfontein, Mr Narey declared: "The prison I saw is much bigger than anything we have tried to build. I think the traditional view is that a prison of that size will be too big to be safe and decent."

But Mr Narey was "converted". And for Mr Blunkett, the South African example represented a welcome chance to break with a mainstream view both at the Home Office and in western Europe that jails on that scale were impossible to manage, and impersonal to the point of cutting people off from their previous lives. He drew up an "investment strategy" paper to be presented to the Cabinet, calling for the introduction of two super-size jails, each holding 1,500 inmates – a thousand fewer than those announced yesterday – as part of a package introducing some 5,400 new places for inmates.

Intriguingly, however, the plans fizzled out before gaining Treasury approval. Gordon Brown, it seems, was not convinced. Yesterday's announcement – designed to increase prison places from 81,000 to 96,000 by 2014 – shows the Treasury, armed with billions more to spend, has been convinced by the concept.

"This is an idea that has been considered for the past 10 years or more, " said Rob Allen, the director of the Institute for the Centre for Prisons Studies. "There is an issue about whether people are close to home, and have links with the local community," Mr Allen said last night. "This is very much based on the American model, of great penitentiaries." The US has since 2000 held the highest number of prisoners in the world – last year 2.2 million were incarcerated – with China and Russia following close behind.

But super-prisons are "unusual" in the rest of Europe, according to Mr Allen. "One outside Paris houses almost 3,000 – but for the bulk of western Europe they are unusual," he said. "In Scandinavia prisons of 60-80 places are much closer to communities." And in the UK, the only large-scale prison built since Mr Blunkett's attempt at breaking the mould was one with 840 beds, in Peterborough. Britain's largest prison is at Wandsworth in south London, which holds about 1,400 inmates. The average size is around 1,000 places.

Despite what critics describe as an inherently "illiberal" culture at the Home Office since Douglas Hurd left the department – boosted by Michael Howard's subsequent declaration that "prison works" – successive governments have until recently never quite embraced mass prisons.

But since Mr Brown became Prime Minister the ground for a fresh start has been prepared. In October Jack Straw, Tony Blair's first home secretary in 1997, said in a speech to the Prison Governors Association that " returning to the [prisons] brief as Justice Secretary, I recognise the different set of pressures that the current prison population creates... [of] maintaining order and control, of continuing to house prisoners with decency... difficulties around cell-sharing, risk assessments – all practical manifestations of prison population pressures."

Yesterday, the Government presented its solution. But if the new announcement represents a victory for elements within the new Ministry of Justice, another group will also be celebrating today: the private sector. Under Mr Blunkett's aborted proposals, the large-scale jails would have been designed, financed and directed by the private sector, for which the proposals would provide thousands of jobs.

    Blunkett and the mission to South Africa that inspired the strategy of 'super-prisons', I, 6.12.2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article3226394.ece

3.15pm GMT update

Government to create

10,000 new prison places

Wednesday December 5, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Louise Radnofsky and agencies

The government today announced that 10,500 new prison places would be created by 2014, amid concerns about overcrowding.

The justice secretary, Jack Straw, said that the move would cost £1.2bn as he presented the findings of a review of the prison system by Lord Carter of Coles.

Carter called for a "significant expansion" of existing prison building plans, with 6,500 additional places required as well as 5,000 more to allow the government to close some older prisons.

The prison population was 81,455 in the week ending November 30, with the system's total capacity at 81,864.

The Home Office has estimated that the population could top 102,000 in the next decade, however.

Overcrowding has been blamed for an increase in deaths in prison, while wardens say that it is making their jobs much more difficult.

Presenting the report to the House of Commons, Straw said that the programme would include three new Titan prisons housing 2,500 inmates each and would bring overall capacity in the prison estate to 96,000 by 2014.

The Ministry of Justice is also "actively looking" at securing a prison ship, he said.

Carter's report also said that judges should consider keeping people convicted of minor offences out of jail unless there is enough space for them.

"You should make immediate changes to existing sentencing legislation to modify the use of custody for certain types of low-risk offenders and offences and encourage use of alternative remedies, in accordance with your strategy for reserving custody for the most serious and dangerous offenders," Carter wrote in his recommendations.

Straw said that the government would consider setting up a sentencing commission that would link prison resources to the "overall sentencing framework", but said that the proposal "has nothing to do with linking individual sentences to the availability of correctional resources".

Carter previously reviewed the legal aid system. A Labour peer since 2004, he was best man at Straw's wedding.

The shadow justice secretary, Nick Herbert, called the recommendations a "devastating indictment" of the government's ability to run the prison system.

The Tory leader, David Cameron, had accused Labour during prime minister's questions of failing to build enough prison cells sooner.

The Carter review was welcomed by the Prison Reform Trust, whose director, Juliet Lyon, said sentences had been subject to "inflation" in recent years.

Lyon said she backed any closer link between sentencing and the availability of prison places, as well as more use of punishment in the community and a review of indeterminate sentences.

"If that is the direction the report is going to take, it would be a recognition that we have got into a really terrible mess for a long period of time," she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"Prisons have been overcrowded since 1994, so if the government is going to take decisive action to do what it has been saying for a while - which is to reserve prison for the most serious and violent offenders - that would be the right thing to do."

Straw also said he would limit the use of indeterminate sentences of "imprisonment for public protection".

IPPs are an open-ended life sentence in which a prisoner must satisfy a parole board that he or she is no longer a risk to the public before being released.

"We will introduce amendments to the criminal justice and immigration bill to introduce a minimum tariff of two years, below which IPPs and extended sentences cannot be given," he said.

Government to create 10,000 new prison places, G, 5.12.2007, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2222182,00.html