Titanic disaster on the horizon if prison building goes full steam ahead
"The Government is to build three huge new prisons as part of a package of measures designed to ease over-crowding by creating 10,500 extra places. The so-called "Titan" prisons - which could be built in London, the West Midlands and the North West - will hold 2,500 inmates each, and the first could be up-and-running within five years".
The obvious problem with the government's proposed solution in Lord Carter's Review of Prisons, given that one of the main issues is prison overcrowding, is that the plan is designed to accommodate 96,000 prisoners by 2014, when the Prison Service predicts the prison population will reach 102,000 by 2011. That's a shortfall of 6,000 prison places with 3 years still to run before 2014.
Another problem is that the Prison Service has shown that it is unable to cope with providing enough courses for prisoners to rehabilitate themselves in prisons with a population of 1,000 prisoners, how much worse is the problem going to be in prisons with a population of 2,500 prisoners? On present figures that's 150% worsening of the situation.
It has been suggested that as we build a new prison it should replace one of the old Victorian prisons. These should be replaced. However, it would appear that planning has not taken into account that by replacing the Victorian prisons you also need to provide extra prison places which will result by their removal from the penal estate.
So far, I have only exposed the tip of the iceberg. It's what lies beneath the surface which will sink this Titanic.
A mixture of law, politics, autobiography and humour. Once described as "The Devilish Advocate" (Guardian), I do have the ability to provoke a response. Sometimes it comes from someone who uses a thought process, and sometimes from jerks usually associated with the knee.
Firstly, the whole mess was brought about by the ex Chancellor not investing in new prison places.
ReplyDeleteWhilst he was quite happy to allow Tony Wot's His name to shout out about how tough on crime they were.
Secondly, the concept of building three super prisons might be financially better. It does not address the fact we should be building smaller more local prisons.
Then we might stand a chance by having prisoners located closer to their families at reforming them.
More importantly in today's announcement would have been saying how much more funding was going to the actual running of prisons rather than just the capital projects.
It will be no good continuing with this current policy of just locking people up and, hoping they will reform themselves.
What is needed is the funds and policies to educate and train present prisoners to allow them at least at start on the path back into normal society.
barnacle bill: In the Woolf Report (1991), he recommended smaller more manageable units. I agree with this. In Sweden, their prisons hold a maximum of 250 inmates. I agree that this should be the maximum capacity. Not only would these be local or community prisons, it will allow for prisoners to address their offending behaviour and thereby reduce the re-offending rates. It is utter madness to seek to go down the Titan prison route. This was rejected in the 1960s when Mountbatten suggested Alcatraz-style prisons.
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