Not a Great Year for Prison Reform

Prison reformers are nothing if not optimists, but 2021 won’t be remembered as a great year.

Dismal projections in November suggested prison numbers could reach 98,500 over the next four years. The Treasury confirmed funds to continue the biggest prison building programme in more than a century.  G4S will open HMP Five Wells for business in February although plans for two of the further six proposed new establishments, in Lancashire and Buckinghamshire, have aroused local opposition.

With a prison population rate already well in excess of our Western European neighbours (Scotland aside), surely £4 billion should be spent more productively than locking up more people for longer. Prison building seems increasingly justified on grounds of local economic development and even levelling up rather than penal effectiveness or crime reduction.

The new jails are unlikely to replace unsuitable old ones – indeed the Prison Service appear to have signed yet another new lease with the Duchy of Cornwall to keep HMP Dartmoor open 212 years after it was built to house French PoWs.

Conditions in many prisons remain poor or even unsafe. It will take at least seven years to install automatic cell fire detection across the estate.  The pains of imprisonment have been exacerbated of course by the restrictions caused by the pandemic, back in place at years end as they were at its start.  

Youth custody is in a mess following the closure of Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre and serious problems at Oakhill. The Medway Secure School, heralded five years ago as a brave new world is reportedly delayed yet again, possibly not opening until 2023. Efforts to better meet the developing needs of young adults have stalled.

Glimmers of hope may lie in an expanding and newly reunified probation service, notwithstanding Prime Ministerial nonsense about chain gangs. 2021 saw the launch of the first new Probation hostel for, extraordinarily, thirty years – a period which has seen 19 new prisons built.

A new generation of problem-solving courts could divert more people from custody and sensibly implemented new arrangements for Out of Court disposals could reduce prosecutions. These initiatives could help ensure that 23,000 new police do not inexorably bring about 20,000 more prisoners.  

A relatively small part of the projected increase in imprisonment will directly come about via the longer custodial terms for serious offenders contained in the Police, Crime Sentencing and Courts Bill which has been wending its way through parliament this year. Their impact could be greater if they have a knock-on effect on the length of terms imposed by courts for less serious crimes.

Stopping that happening will be a job for the Sentencing Council. Promisingly, it has decided to give overdue priority to considering evidence on the effectiveness of sentencing and enhancing ways to raise awareness of the relevant issues.  

Back in 2008, when in Opposition a Conservative Shadow Prisons Minister told MPs “the rise in the number of prisoners from 60,000 to 83,000 should not be a point of pride. It should be a point of shame.” He was right. Going up to almost 100,000 would be even more shameful.

So as we go into 2022, lets hang on to the thought that while a future with more and more prisoners is looking likely, it isn’t inevitable.