It has been another tumultuous month for the prison system in England and Wales. During a recent Prime Ministers Questions exchange the government was challenged on its plans for the emergency release of prisons and The Times later reported that the National Police Chiefs’ Council has issued internal guidance recommending a pause on ‘non-priority arrests’ until there is adequate capacity in overcrowded jails. Crime, criminal justice and management of the prison system will almost certainly feature prominently in the forthcoming general election campaign before voters go to the polls on 4 July 2024. Pic: Andy Aitchison
In a febrile political atmosphere of claim, and counter claim, it can be easy to lose sight of everyday life in our overcrowded prisons or how current concerns connect to a longer history of myopic political leadership in the era of ‘prison works’. We are where we are because successive governments have embraced expansionary sentencing reforms that increase the use of immediate custodial sentences, drive up average sentence lengths and restricting access to parole. We are where we are because of chronic underinvestment in our prison system that has contributed to a recruitment and retention crisis of experienced staff, an alarming reduction in access to rehabilitation, education and training opportunities and a maintenance backlog that has resulted in scandalous prison conditions.
Of perhaps greatest concern, a political system that values ‘toughness’ over governing competence has become tone death to the warnings of hard working prison staff. In England and Wales we incarcerate a higher proportion of our population than any other country in Western Europe and the prison population is projected to reach 115,000 by 2028. What does it say about the health of our politics when so many Justice Secretaries have been unable, or unwilling, to speak openly about the need to control the prison population until they have left high office?
“The three of us know, having served in different capacities in different governments, that all governments, of whatever political persuasion, have failed to grasp this nettle for far too long… .”
Nick Clegg MP (Deputy Prime Minister, 2010-2015); Kenneth Clarke MP (Justice Secretary 2010-12, Home Secretary 1992-93); Jacqui Smith, (Home Secretary 2007-09). Letter to The Times, 22 December 2016
“… it is an inconvenient truth – which I swerved to an extent while in office – that we send too many people to prison. And of those who deserve to be in custody, many, but certainly not all, are sent there for too long… .”
Michael Gove (Justice Secretary, 2015-2016), Longford Lecture, 16 November 2016
As a result of these political choices, the Prison Service has been left with little option but to pursue an increasingly high-stakes ‘build or bust’ strategy to avoid system breakdown. Since 1990, billions have been poured into the construction of new prisons like the Titan-style HMP Fosse Way, in Leicestershire. Private prison providers have been awarded lucrative PFI contracts, hundreds of new houseblocks have been constructed on existing prison sites, extensive use has been made of prefabricated cells. A Prison Hulk, HMP Weare, was moored in Portland Harbour between 1997 and 2006, disused MOD and NHS sites have been re-rolled as prisons and episodic use has been made of expensive police cells. So insatiable is the appetite for new real estate that the MOJ has explored options to rent overseas prison cells.
Figure 1: Annual number of new places added to the prison estate in England and Wales, 1990-2022
Source: Prison Service Annual Reports (Various)
As Figure 1 makes clear, the Prison Service has found creative ways to deliver additional capacity on an annual basis, but this strategy cannot be sustained indefinitely. History teaches us that sooner or later the money runs out or the pipeline of new capital projects grinds to a halt. For a time, the Prison Service can flex its operational capacity but, when demand consistently outstrips the supply new prison places, governments are forced to introduce emergency measures to prevent the prison system going off the rails completely. This happened in 2007 when the New Labour government introduced the End of Custody Licence (ECL) scheme to release eligible prisoners on temporary licence up to 18 days before their release date. And it is happening again in 2024 with a Conservative Government announcing Operation Safeguard and the End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) in response to the chronic overcrowding pressures that have seen the Prison Inspectorate issue an urgent notification at HMP Wandsworth.
One year ago, in a Prison Reform Trust discussion paper, I co-authored with Professor Harry Annison, we observed that penal crises can be moments in time and space when the political system is forced to confront the realities ‘on the ground’ for prisoners, staff, victims, families and the wider public. Unfortunately, recent rhetoric indicates there is little political appetite for change and the main political parties are once again doubling down on a build or bust approach to prisons management. While the Conservative Government has committed £3.8bn to construct 20,000 new prison places by 2030, the Labour Party has indicated that it will use emergency powers to build new prisons and stop criminals from being released early.
This restrictive political consensus is symptomatic of a misfiring representative democracy that neither represents nor governs effectively. Not only is it eye wateringly expensive to lay track just in front of the train, but a collective failure to look up and think strategically about the aims and techniques of imprisonment has normalised a dysfunctional system that lurches from crisis to crisis. Breaking this cycle may take a generation or more, but big changes always start with the small steps; it will require effective grassroots activism, like the alliance of women’s organisations working to resist new women’s prisons; it calls for vibrant democratic spaces where new and varied voices on prison reform can be heard; it needs robust democratic scrutiny of new prison building and, as other countries have shown, it demands consistent political leadership at all levels of government it if we are to change tracks from our current build or bust politics.
