Britain is on course for a long-term expansion in prison capacity, according to a new assessment from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. In England and Wales, nearly 22,000 extra prison places are being planned in the coming years, while in Scotland an extra 3,600 prison places are under development.
The Centre says that the Westminster government in London and the Scottish Government in Edinburgh are planning to take about 10,500 of old prison place capacity out of circulation. But even when this is taken into account, this still means more prison capacity of some 15,000 is planned in the coming years. Previous experience also suggests that prisons slated for closure often stay open, the Centre adds.
That’s contained in the latest, 40-page edition of UK Justice Policy Review, from the Centre, which annually assesses criminal justice in the UK, covering key speeches and new laws. It comes as the UK Government has confirmed its plans to spend £2.5 billion building four new prisons in England; the first next to HMP Full Sutton, in east Yorkshire. One will be in the north west of England, and the other two in the south east at sites yet to be named.
Richard Garside, the director of the London-based Centre, was one of the report authors. He said: “While the governments in London and Edinburgh pay lip-service to the notion that a smaller prison population is desirable, all their actions suggest a commitment to further growth and a long-term commitment to unnecessary incarceration.
“Rather than attempting to build their way out of the current prisons crisis, they would do better to rethink some of their basic assumptions, developing a long-term strategy to prevent unnecessary criminalisation and tackle unnecessary imprisonment.”
Meanwhile among the Centre’s recent webinars, Adam Elliott-Cooper from The Monitoring Group and the University of Greenwich spoke of recent anti-racism protests that were around “criminal justice reform and… on the more radical end… it’s been about what we might call ‘defunding of the police’… premised on the idea that we can’t solve our social problems through increasing the power of the police and prison system.
“It’s a demand for ending this war on gangs, ending the war on terror, ending the hostile environment policy, and, rather, investing in the community institutions: the youth clubs, mental health provision, particularly for young people, that can help the most vulnerable people in our society before they come into contact with the criminal justice system.”
Photo by Mark Rowe; Leicester prison.
