Hi Tony, John and Charles,
How did the local elections go?
It would appear that the government has miscalculated how many prisoners it can fit into the available Certified Normal Accommodation within the penal estate.
As I understand it with penal policy, you have three options. Expansion, standstill and reduction. Where you appear to have gone wrong is that you have increased the prison population, by your myriad of new criminal laws and the get tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime policy, and yet you have failed to take into account that increasing the prison population by putting more into prison and keeping them in there for longer, and not building more prisons to facilitate this, that you would eventually run out of spaces. If you had succeeded in getting a pint into a half pint glass, I would have been amazed.
It is good news to read that you are considering plans for the early release of up to 3,000 prisoners. But why stop there? As Juliet Lyon, Director of the prison Reform Trust observes: "The continuing overcrowding crisis means the government faces a real choice, they can either use early release as a pressure valve, buying time to build a few more prisons, crowded as soon as built, or they can get to grips with the root causes of needless overcrowding and stop sending mentally ill people, petty offenders, addicts in need of treatment to prison".
I realise that the 'we are going to get tough on criminals' is designed to get votes, but the reality is that this line that you are taking does not protect the public and therefore does not benefit them. Building more prisons only cost the public more and the only ones to benefit are the private companies who build the prisons and the private companies who run them.
Odd as it may seem at first sight, but law and order can best be measured by how few and not how many are incarcerated. Therefore, the best option available is to follow a policy of reductionism.
I trust that this advice has been helpful?
Yours sincerely,
Jailhouselawyer.
