26 FEBRUARY 2003

‘Investing in Failure’

Speaking today in response to the publication of the World Prison Population List and the publication of the prison population statistics for 2001 and also the reported plans to invest £200 million in a prison building programme, Juliet Lyon, Director of the Prison Reform Trust said:

“On the day that new Home Office figures reveal that the UK now has the highest imprisonment rate in the European Union and that reconviction rates have got worse not better, it makes no sense for the Government to invest in building new prison places when the same money could buy effective drug treatment, adequate mental health care and robust community sentences.

Why when prison numbers are going through the roof, and more and more people are re-offending as soon as they get out, is our Government buying time rather than investing in real solutions to cut crime?

It makes social and economic sense to fund prisons to work effectively with serious and violent offenders not to act as huge dustbins for other failing public services.”