Here is an idea that will relieve pressure on the prisons and obviate the lunatic policy of letting criminals back on to the streets, not because they have served their time but to free up a cell. Why not sell off the Victorian prisons to raise funds to build more capacity inside the rest of the system?
This is such a good idea that it has been announced at least three times in the past 25 years, only for nothing to happen. It was first mooted by Martin Narey, then director general of the prison service, in 2000. He revealed his plan in response to criticism from the chief inspector of prisons about poor and overcrowded conditions in jails in England and Wales.
The best candidates for sale are on prime inner London sites, like Wandsworth, Pentonville and Brixton. Prisons in Manchester, Leeds, Reading and Winchester, some of which have also been in continuous use since the 1840s, would also prove attractive to builders. With Labour desperate to find urban land on which to build their promised new 1.5 million homes, this is an opportunity to work with developers on schemes from which everyone will benefit.
The Victorian jails, which will have to be closed eventually anyway and cost a fortune to maintain, would be replaced by new titan prisons holding thousands of inmates in more modern surroundings. There are obvious difficulties here. What do you do with inmates in say, Brixton, after it has been sold and demolished? Where do they go in the meantime?
Also there is bound to be serious opposition to plans for giant new prisons dotted around the country; but since Labour proposes to ride roughshod over local objections, they can presumably be overcome.
The point is that this plan has never gone away but nor has it ever taken off. It is trotted out by politicians whenever there is a prison capacity crisis, as there is now, and because the alternatives are unpalatable. I expect to hear it again sometime soon as the Government struggles to cope with a system near breaking point even as the courts send dozens of rioters to jail.
The response is to release thousands of prisoners earlier, at 40 per cent of the way through their sentences rather than at the halfway point. They include offenders serving sentences under four years for crimes such as assault, as well as burglars, robbers and thieves.
This is not just Labour’s idea. More than 10,000 prisoners were released up to 70 days early by Rishi Sunak’s government between October and June to tackle the jail overcrowding crisis. More than half at some prisons were said to have been recalled after offending or breaching their licence. The new Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has conceded that this policy is risky but she is going ahead with it anyway with knock-on effects throughout the system.
What is the alternative? In the past, three prisoners were often kept in cells built for two, but that practice ended after the Strangeways riot in 1990. At the time, the Manchester prison, built to hold a maximum of 970 people, had 1,647 inmates, 70 per cent over capacity. The riot and subsequent three-week occupation caused the deaths of two people and left 147 warders injured, while much of the prison was destroyed.
An inquiry chaired by Lord Woolf recommended a series of measures to improve “intolerable” conditions. At the time, the prison population in England and Wales was 64,000. It is now about 88,000, the consequence of a larger overall population, a high number of foreign-born offenders who make up one in eight inmates, and tougher sentences. Nearly 60 per cent of determinate prison sentences are now more than four years compared with 40 per cent a decade ago. In 2000, there were 121 jails; now there are 124, with existing ones expanded to accommodate the greater numbers.
The system is bursting at the seams but the new government is as clueless as its predecessors in deciding what to do. Few policy areas are more littered with ambitious ideas, pointless reports and false promises.
The Carter Review in 2007 suggested a network of eight super prisons each holding 1,500 offenders to replace 30 rundown jails. However, the then Labour government dropped that idea and began talking about investing in a network of small, local, hostel-style jails. When Michael Gove became justice secretary in 2015, he revived the Narey idea, announcing that prisons on lucrative inner city real estate sites would be closed and sold for development.
He backed a report from the Policy Exchange think tank earmarking 30 outdated prisons for closure and the construction of at least 10 super-prisons, each costing £270-£320 million and capable of housing up to 3,000 inmates. The report estimated that the efficiencies to be gained from new facilities would lead to an annual saving of £600 million a year – around 20 per cent of the prison service budget – and that the construction programme would therefore pay for itself in seven years.
Whether any of this is remotely feasible is moot since none of it has even been taken up beyond the “what if we did this?” phase. One problem facing potential developers is that most of the Victorian prisons in England and Wales are partly or fully listed. At Wandsworth prison, south London, the gatehouse, and governor’s and doctor’s houses are all listed, but developers may be able to make a feature out of them.
Politicians know that there are no votes to be won in penal reform and that to commit billions to new prisons would be unacceptable to voters. This is why the “new for old” idea is about the only one with any merit.
The alternative is to jail fewer people, but for that to work there has to be a significant improvement in bespoke community sentencing programmes. These may sound good and enlightened, but they are expensive. Furthermore, if they are ineffective then the criminals who would otherwise be in jail will continue offending, pushing up the crime rate once more.
The politicians’ dilemma is how to balance these imperatives. They want to be tough on offenders yet neglect the consequential impact on the prison estate, hoping that it will somehow sort itself out or no one will be particularly bothered if it doesn’t. But people will care very much if crime worsens. Labour can keep blaming the Tories only for so long. Then it becomes their responsibility.
Here is an idea that will relieve pressure on the prisons and obviate the lunatic policy of letting criminals back on to the streets, not because they have served their time but to free up a cell. Why not sell off the Victorian prisons to raise funds to build more capacity inside the rest of the system?
This is such a good idea that it has been announced at least three times in the past 25 years, only for nothing to happen. It was first mooted by Martin Narey, then director general of the prison service, in 2000. He revealed his plan in response to criticism from the chief inspector of prisons about poor and overcrowded conditions in jails in England and Wales.
The best candidates for sale are on prime inner London sites, like Wandsworth, Pentonville and Brixton. Prisons in Manchester, Leeds, Reading and Winchester, some of which have also been in continuous use since the 1840s, would also prove attractive to builders. With Labour desperate to find urban land on which to build their promised new 1.5 million homes, this is an opportunity to work with developers on schemes from which everyone will benefit.
The Victorian jails, which will have to be closed eventually anyway and cost a fortune to maintain, would be replaced by new titan prisons holding thousands of inmates in more modern surroundings. There are obvious difficulties here. What do you do with inmates in say, Brixton, after it has been sold and demolished? Where do they go in the meantime?
Also there is bound to be serious opposition to plans for giant new prisons dotted around the country; but since Labour proposes to ride roughshod over local objections, they can presumably be overcome.
The point is that this plan has never gone away but nor has it ever taken off. It is trotted out by politicians whenever there is a prison capacity crisis, as there is now, and because the alternatives are unpalatable. I expect to hear it again sometime soon as the Government struggles to cope with a system near breaking point even as the courts send dozens of rioters to jail.
The response is to release thousands of prisoners earlier, at 40 per cent of the way through their sentences rather than at the halfway point. They include offenders serving sentences under four years for crimes such as assault, as well as burglars, robbers and thieves.
This is not just Labour’s idea. More than 10,000 prisoners were released up to 70 days early by Rishi Sunak’s government between October and June to tackle the jail overcrowding crisis. More than half at some prisons were said to have been recalled after offending or breaching their licence. The new Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has conceded that this policy is risky but she is going ahead with it anyway with knock-on effects throughout the system.
What is the alternative? In the past, three prisoners were often kept in cells built for two, but that practice ended after the Strangeways riot in 1990. At the time, the Manchester prison, built to hold a maximum of 970 people, had 1,647 inmates, 70 per cent over capacity. The riot and subsequent three-week occupation caused the deaths of two people and left 147 warders injured, while much of the prison was destroyed.
An inquiry chaired by Lord Woolf recommended a series of measures to improve “intolerable” conditions. At the time, the prison population in England and Wales was 64,000. It is now about 88,000, the consequence of a larger overall population, a high number of foreign-born offenders who make up one in eight inmates, and tougher sentences. Nearly 60 per cent of determinate prison sentences are now more than four years compared with 40 per cent a decade ago. In 2000, there were 121 jails; now there are 124, with existing ones expanded to accommodate the greater numbers.
The system is bursting at the seams but the new government is as clueless as its predecessors in deciding what to do. Few policy areas are more littered with ambitious ideas, pointless reports and false promises.
The Carter Review in 2007 suggested a network of eight super prisons each holding 1,500 offenders to replace 30 rundown jails. However, the then Labour government dropped that idea and began talking about investing in a network of small, local, hostel-style jails. When Michael Gove became justice secretary in 2015, he revived the Narey idea, announcing that prisons on lucrative inner city real estate sites would be closed and sold for development.
He backed a report from the Policy Exchange think tank earmarking 30 outdated prisons for closure and the construction of at least 10 super-prisons, each costing £270-£320 million and capable of housing up to 3,000 inmates. The report estimated that the efficiencies to be gained from new facilities would lead to an annual saving of £600 million a year – around 20 per cent of the prison service budget – and that the construction programme would therefore pay for itself in seven years.
Whether any of this is remotely feasible is moot since none of it has even been taken up beyond the “what if we did this?” phase. One problem facing potential developers is that most of the Victorian prisons in England and Wales are partly or fully listed. At Wandsworth prison, south London, the gatehouse, and governor’s and doctor’s houses are all listed, but developers may be able to make a feature out of them.
Politicians know that there are no votes to be won in penal reform and that to commit billions to new prisons would be unacceptable to voters. This is why the “new for old” idea is about the only one with any merit.
The alternative is to jail fewer people, but for that to work there has to be a significant improvement in bespoke community sentencing programmes. These may sound good and enlightened, but they are expensive. Furthermore, if they are ineffective then the criminals who would otherwise be in jail will continue offending, pushing up the crime rate once more.
The politicians’ dilemma is how to balance these imperatives. They want to be tough on offenders yet neglect the consequential impact on the prison estate, hoping that it will somehow sort itself out or no one will be particularly bothered if it doesn’t. But people will care very much if crime worsens. Labour can keep blaming the Tories only for so long. Then it becomes their responsibility.