Building prisons in England and Wales the bigger the better?

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Number 05646, 12 February 2016 18 • Capital cost of constructing five 1,500 place prisons had been estimated to be around £1.2bn excluding VAT and site purchase costs. Capacity and Competition Policy for Prisons and Probation summarised recent developments. 45 Building its way out of a crisis? Criticism of Labour’s prison building programme Commentators were critical of the Labour Government’s reliance on building more prison places as a means of coping with the increased prison population – a point picked up by the Justice Committee in its report on justice reinvestment (discussed later). A former HM chief inspector of prisons, Lord Ramsbotham, criticised Labour’s "torrent of hastily and ill-thought through legislation" on criminal justice and lack of a clear strategy: Highlighting the rise in reoffending, [Lord Ramsbotham] poses the question: "Is the public being protected?" before adding: "If reoffending is used as a measure of that, the answer is a resounding no. When New Labour took over in 1997, the reoffending rate for adult male prisoners stood at 55% within two years of release. It now stands at 67%." 46 The PRT argued in 2008 that building more prisons was a “failing strategy”. Unless the growth in the prison population was halted, Titan prisons could be no more than an expensive but short-term solution. The MoJ’s projections of the prison population should (the PRT said) be regarded as a warning of what lay ahead. 47 The former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf (who led the inquiry into the riot at Manchester’s Strangeways prison) also spoke against successive Home Secretaries’ encouragement of harsher sentencing and the resulting overcrowding in prisons: In such a severe economic crisis it is folly to have policies that make the prison population substantially higher than is necessary. Many US states are introducing policies to cut the number of prisoners, which, in turn, has cut reoffending. We must do the same. 48 5.2 Policies of the coalition Government In the aftermath of the formation of the coalition Government, conjecture surrounded its plans for the prison building programme and whether that programme could or should be shelved as the Government’s criminal justice policies took effect. There was speculation about whether the Government would continue with the prison building programme, especially as remarks by Kenneth Clarke 45 See, for example, MoJ, Capacity and Competition Policy for Prisons and Probation, April 2009: page 8 46 Karen McVeigh, “Former chief inspector says Labour left 'dysfunctional' prison service in crisis” Guardian online, 24 May 2010 47 Prison Reform Trust, Titan prisons: A gigantic mistake, August 2008: page 10 48 Lord Woolf, “Britain’s ballooning prison population is a disastrous mess” Times online, 27 May 2010 [paywall]
19 Building prisons in England and Wales: the bigger, the better? appeared to cast doubt on whether a prison population of more than 85,000 was necessary or sustainable. In an interview in June 2010, Kenneth Clarke questioned why the prison population should be twice what it was when he was Home Secretary from 1992 to 1993. 49 Likewise, his remarks in a speech to the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies ─ in which he described the size of the prison population as “astonishing ─ were interpreted by some commentators as a shift away from the use of prison as a political tool. Kenneth Clarke observed that there would always be a need for imprisonment for those who had committed serious offences, but questioned whether the vast rise in the prison population had in itself protected the public against crime or whether the public felt safer. He rejected, though, the notion that sentencing decisions should reflect considerations of cost and said that the MoJ was still letting contracts for new prisons. 50 January 2011 to December 2012 - two new prisons and prison closures As the projections for prison population in future years reduced, the MoJ took the opportunity to close older, more costly prison places. 51 In January 2011, the MoJ announced the closure of two prisons (HM Prisons Lancaster Castle and Ashwell) and the changing of a third (HM Prison Morton Hall) into an Immigration Removal Centre, with the total loss of around 849 places. In July 2011, it announced the closure of two more prisons (HM Prisons Latchmere House and Brockhill) with the further loss of 377 places. 52 In March 2012, the MoJ announced that two new prisons would begin opening that year, providing around 2,500 additional places by March 2013. HM Prison Thameside, which would provide around 900 places, was to start operating in March 2012, and HM Prison Oakwood (previously known as Featherstone 2) which would provide around 1,600 places, was expected to open in April 2012. The MoJ said that total prison capacity would be around 91,000 by March 2013. 53,54 Soon after, in July 2012, the MoJ announced it would be closing HMP Wellingborough, with the loss of 588 prison places. Kenneth Clarke said that, with the opening of new prison accommodation earlier in the year the “opportunity [existed] to further improve the estate by closing uneconomic prison places at HMP Wellingborough”. The MoJ said the 49 Christopher Hope, “Lock Up Fewer Criminals To Save Money, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke Suggests” Daily Telegraph online, 14 June 2010 50 SERCO announced that its consortium had signed a contract (worth about £415m and running for 26½ years) to provide and operate a new prison at Belmarsh West in London. [SERCO Stock Exchange Announcement “Serco signs contract for Belmarsh West prison valued at £415m” 5 July 2010] 51 The status of each prison building or site closed since 2010 was set out in response to a PQ in January 2016 [PQ 19421 of 12 January 2016]. 52 MoJ, Prisons competition and capacity announcement, 13 July 2011 53 MoJ, 2500 more prison spaces, 29 March 2012 54 See also MoJ press release, Closure of HMP Wellingborough, 17 July 2012. The closure of Wellingborough prison was the subject of an adjournment debate in November 2013: HC Deb 18 November 2013 c1052-64
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