Building prisons in England and Wales the bigger the better?

23 Building prisons in England and Wales: the bigger, the better?
6. The “Titan” prison proposals
In his review of prisons for the Labour Government, Lord Carter of Coles
recommended that, over and above the expansion of the prison estate
already planned and in train, the Prison Service should provide a further
6,500 places to increase capacity by 2012. A large “Titan” 65 prison
should be part of this and another two Titan prisons should be provided
as part of the modernisation of the prison estate, to remove
inefficiencies. 66
Lord Carter set out his vision of what a Titan prison would be. Amongst
other things, each (he said) would:
• provide up to 2,500 places in five units of approximately 500
offenders
• draw on the best practice in the existing estate, with regime and
facilities which would provide purposeful activities, such as
employment and training, for prisoners and
• be cost-effective, delivering cost savings during both construction
and operation.
The opening of Titan prisons would, Lord Carter suggested, permit the
Prison Service to close old and inefficient prisons, thus making savings in
the cost of maintenance and even bringing in revenue through the sale
of defunct and decrepit prisons. Lord Carter identified some potential
difficulties in running a prison on such a scale, but was not deterred,
remarking that some existing prisons or clusters of prisons ─ such as the
Isle of Sheppey Cluster, whose operating capacity was soon to rise to at
least 2,400 places ─ were almost of Titanic size. 67
On the day of the publication of the Carter report, the then Justice
Secretary, Jack Straw, announced that, along with other measures to
increase the size of the prison estate, he had accepted the
recommendation to build up to three Titan prisons. 68 A month later, in
January 2008, the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, stated that the
Titan prisons would go ahead after the Justice Secretary’s consultation,
thereby implying that the consultation would be about the detail rather
than the principle. 69
6.1 Views from penal experts and Parliament
The concept of Titan prisons attracted a lot of criticism – the PRT, for
example, calling it a “gigantic mistake”.
65
In Greek myth, the Titans were deities, the 12 children of Gaia and Uranus and their
offspring. Myth records that Kronos, one of the sons of Gaia and Uranus, ate his
children and the Titans also killed and ate Zeus’s infant son, Dionysus. The Titans were
eventually overthrown by the Olympians.
66
Securing the Future: Proposals for the efficient and sustainable use of custody in
England and Wales (Lord Carter’s Review of Prisons), December 2007: Executive
summary: page 2
67
Ibid: pages 38-9
68
HC Deb 5 December 2007 cc827-8
69
HC Deb 30 January 2008 c312