‘MORATORIUM ON NEW PRISON BUILDING’

ENGLAND AND WALES HIT RECORD PRISON POPULATION

As the prison population reaches a new record of 73,091, the Prison Reform Trust calls for a moratorium on new prison building and instead urges the government to adopt a ten point action plan to reduce prison numbers.  England and Wales is currently the jail capital of Western Europe with the highest imprisonment rate in the European Union at 139 per 100,000.  Record numbers in prison have led to serious overcrowding – the latest Home Office figures reveal that 81 prisons are overcrowded. In the last two months 12 prisons have exceeded their maximum capacity.

The top 20 overcrowded prisons are:

Lincoln, Leicester, Preston, Usk, Shrewsbury, Exeter, Swansea, Cardiff, Canterbury, Dorchester, Leeds, Lancaaster, Doncaster, Bedford, Bristol, Northallerton, Pentonville, Winchester, Reading, Gloucester
As a result of overcrowding the number of suicides has increased. Last year there were 94 deaths by suicide in prison custody, compared to 72 in 2001. Since January 29 prisoners have killed themselves.

Prison activities and training workshops are being axed to make way for more bed spaces. Prisoners are being moved from jail to jail to make room for those who need to be near the Courts. And staff  do not have the time to work with prisoners to plan for resettlement.

Building new prisons has proved no solution to prison overcrowding. In the last ten years 19 new prisons have been opened.  Of these, 16 are overcrowded. Creating new prison places can be compared to adding a lane to the M25 motorway.

The prison population is set to go on rising. Next year 81,300 people will be sent to prison but only 75,00 places will be available.  Home Office projections predict a prison population of just over 91,000 by 2006, with just 77,500 prison places available. By the end of the decade the prison population could be just under 110,000.

The government’s own figures demonstrate that the gap between projected numbers and available prison places cannot possibly be met. It needs to urgently rethink its strategy. Locking up record numbers of people is not working - 59 per cent of all prisoners are reconvicted within two years of release and three quarters of young male offenders will be reconvicted in this period. The Prison Reform Trust is calling on the government to end all new prison building and to adopt the following ten point action plan (click here for action plan)

Juliet Lyon Director of PRT said:

‘Facing record prison numbers and more to come, the Home Office simply does not have the time or money to build its way out of trouble but it can invest in effective community sentences which will do far more in the long run to reduce crime and increase public safety.

There is a stark choice. Government can reserve prison for serious and violent offenders only, and rebalance the criminal justice system towards punishment in the community, or it can allow prisons to become overcrowded social dustbins, and face appalling reconviction rates and a rising toll of suicides as a result.’