Defund Prisons?

 

With prisons literally falling to pieces, presenting serious risks of fire and struggling to retain staff, it may seem perverse and even dangerous to argue that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) should spend less on them.

And so it might be if funds were being earmarked to replace Victorian relics like Winchester where monitors report control room staff exposed to “unpalatable smells” from corpses of poisoned rats, or Wandsworth, rated unsafe, inhumane and “totally unfit for purpose.”

But the £3.8 billion capital spending announced by the Chancellor last week won’t fund new for old modernisation of a crumbling and unsuitable estate but simply increase its overall capacity by 20,000 places, adding 25% to a prison population whose rate exceeds that in every other western European country.

The Spending Review claims the programme “will support the transition towards a more efficient, safe and environmentally sustainable prison estate” but unless prison numbers undershoot the projection of  98,700 by 2026, there will be no scope for reducing overcrowding across the system as a whole, let alone closing the oldest and most brutalising prisons.

The bigger question of course is whether such an eye watering sum of money could be better used in other ways. Did anyone in the Treasury ask it? Their Green Book says “appraisal of alternative policy options is an inseparable part of detailed policy development and design”. It would not take any official long to find the latest US meta research study confirming that “custodial sanctions have no effect on reoffending or slightly increase it when compared with the effects of noncustodial sanctions such as probation”.

Such evidence may count for little given the current political capital behind punishment and prison expansion but what’s disappointing is how little debate there’s been about other ways at least some of the prison funds could be used.

Two years ago former Met Chief Ian Blair proposed that the police should recruit half the promised 20,000 extra officers with the remaining resources used more creatively on measures recommended by a Royal Commission or People’s Panels. These might want other kinds of police staff (such as analysts dealing with cybercrime) or, “of even more importance, other services which help prevent crime in the first place”.

Sadly, this Justice Reinvestment approach has not been taken up in respect of policing, but as for prison spending it hasn’t really even been put forward- apart from in the campaign to abandon the  plans to build 500 new prison places for women, which so obviously fly in the face of the government’s own female offender strategy.

The MoJ’s current ideas in large part involve new and expanded Category B and C prisons. Back in 2010, the Coalition agreed to “explore alternative forms of secure, treatment-based accommodation for mentally ill and drugs offenders” but went nowhere. Residential rehabilitation has diminished over recent years. Such options are among the community based and institutional measures which should be funded with the Treasury’s billions. Prisons are a dead end- and a costly one.  

Honesty on Prisons

Dominic Raab told his Party Conference this week that the government is investing £4 billion to deliver 18,000 extra prison places. How’s that going?

Whatever one thinks of the policy- not a lot in my case- the programme to deliver it looks to be making some progress. But considerable uncertainties remain, especially in respect of planning permission and budgets for new prisons; and increasing capacity in existing ones. I wouldn’t bet much on all of the additional places being available by 2026.

In May, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) told the Justice Committee the 18,000 place expansion plan for  the prison estate is made up as follows:

6 New Builds	9,800
Estate Expansions	6,400
Rapid Deployment and Temporary Accommodation	1,400
Estate Conversions (re-rolling existing facilities into prisons)	400
Total	18,000

 

The 6 new builds comprise two Category C prisons where construction is underway:  the 1,680 places at HMP Five Wells where prisoners will arrive in February 2022 and a similar number at Glen Parva due to open in Spring 2023 after various delays.

Detailed plans have been submitted for two other prisons; the new 1,440 place Category C Prison at Full Sutton is being considered by East Riding Council. If approved, building will start next year. Harborough District Council in Leicestershire is not expected to decide until next year on the application for a 1,715 place Category B prison next to HMP Gartree.

A number of other options are being explored for the other two proposed new builds. A pre application consultation was held earlier in the year on a new Category C resettlement prison for 1,440 on land adjacent to HMP Grendon and HMP Springhill in Buckinghamshire.  A similar consultation was held over the summer about a new 1,715 capacity Category C prison on land next to HMP Garth and HMP Wymott in Chorley, Lancashire.

Additionally, recent weeks have seen a proposal for two new prisons in Essex. Local residents have until 8 November to comment on ideas for a Category B and Category C prison on RAF land at Wethersfield  each of which would accommodate 1,715 prisoners.  

Wherever the final sites, the MoJ is working hard to reduce building time by using standard designs, encouraging off site construction and creating an alliance of 4 building companies who will work together to plan and set up supply chains.  Each company will be allocated one prison to deliver in due course.

Even so, completing all four by 2026 could prove challenging; contract signing to completion looks likely to take almost three years in the case of Five Wells but nearer four or more for Glen Parva.

That’s why an important part of the programme involves making existing prisons bigger. Capacity is being expanded by 938 at HMPs Guys Marsh, Rye Hill, Stocken and High Down. Other establishments look set to hold more prisoners. A consultation is underway about an additional  247 place house block for men at HMP Gartree. Estate expansion includes the wholly unjustifiable creation of 500 new places in five women’s prisons.

MOJ staff were told this week in an update on the Department’s Outcome Delivery Plan that “there are some elements that aren’t progressing as hoped, for example the houseblock programme” but no details were provided. In coming months and years, monitoring this - and indeed the overall programme will be an important task for MPs on the Justice Committee.

The idea that simply adding more cells without extending a prison’s capacity to provide a decent and rehabilitative regime for their occupants is, in any event deeply flawed. Independent Monitors at Wymott reported today that “the kitchen, built in 1979, continues to struggle to cater for more prisoners than was originally planned.”  

The IMB also reported that one wing has been closed for failing to meet health and safety legislation and that “other wings have been in a dire state for many years”.

The Lancashire Prison seems a microcosm of the existing estate, much of which is not fit for purpose. Rather than build a new prison next door, the Prison Service would do better to bring existing facilities up to scratch and reinstate their new for old policy with the worst prisons closed and if necessary, replaced. That of course would require a stabilisation and ideally sharp reduction in prison numbers. 

Sadly, that’s not something we are likely to see. The Justice Secretary thinks “we need the extra cells to restore some honesty in sentencing.” 

What we really need is honesty on prisons.