The Prison Reform Trust today calls on the new justice secretary, Rt Hon Ken Clarke QC MP, and newly announced prisons minister, Crispin Blunt MP, to consider a moratorium on prison building to give time to develop an effective penal policy.
With the new coalition government facing tough choices, a Prison Reform Trust briefing published today says reversing the unaffordable trend in ever expanding prison numbers will be an urgent priority.
Read coverage of the briefing in today's Guardian
The last time Ken Clarke was in charge of prison and penal policy, as home secretary, the average prison population (1992-93) was 44,628. Figures just released by the Prison Service show that prison numbers for England and Wales have now exceeded 85,000. In France, with the same population as Britain, prison numbers are 59,655 and in Germany with over 20 million more people, 72,043.
In the current climate it would be a form of economic madness to allow the prison population to continue to spiral out of control. Each new prison place costs £170,000 to build and maintain, and the cost per prisoner per year is £45,000. Total prison expenditure increased from £2.843bn in 1995 to £4.325bn in 2006 (2006 prices). The National Audit Office estimates that reoffending by all recent ex-prisoners cost the economy between £9.5 billion and £13 billion a year.
A moratorium would give the new government time to learn the lessons from abroad and, closer to home, to encourage local authorities, voluntary organisations, police and probation services to work closer together to develop community solutions to crime that inspire public and judicial confidence.
The success of justice reinvestment and prisoner re-entry programmes, driven by economic necessity in many states in America, and the impressive reduction in crime achieved by integrated offender management schemes here in England and Wales, provide a rich source of information.
Ken Clarke has previously criticised ministers for allowing an unprecedented rise in the prison population since his tenure as home secretary. In a debate with the former justice minister, David Hanson, in the House of Commons in June 2007, he said:
Does the Minister accept that in the past 10 years four home secretaries have responded to media pressure by taking away discretion on sentencing from the courts and putting them under pressure, which has dramatically increased the prison population to almost double what it was when I was home secretary, without paying the slightest heed to the inevitable moment when they would hit the buffers and there was no accommodation?
He continued:
Will the new department produce a change of culture in which the platitudes about community sentences and making prison only for those who need it are turned into reality by returning proper discretion to the courts and ensuring that prisons are used only for violent, dangerous and recidivist criminals in conditions in which there is some hope that some of them will be rehabilitated?
In March 2007, in a debate with the PPS to the Solicitor General, Jim Cunningham, he said:
Maintaining a freeze on Home Office spending after years in which the government have been doing their best to increase the prison population at a fantastic rate seems to me to be almost impossible. If the prison population continues to rise at the rate at which it has risen in recent years, as the home secretary has tried desperately to get the right headlines in all the most popular right-wing newspapers, it will merely mean a tremendous squeeze on spending in every other part of the criminal justice system, including the police, the probation service and the courts service.
Under plans inherited by the new justice team from the previous administration, the net capacity of the prison estate would increase to 96,000 by 2014. This would take the rate of imprisonment in England and Wales to 178 per 100,000 – the highest in western Europe, and higher than Bulgaria (124), Romania (126), Slovakia (151) and Hungary (152).
Between the Liberal Democrat and Conservative election manifestos there is broad consensus on investing in getting children out of trouble and nipping youth crime in the bud, diverting addicts and people who are mentally ill into effective treatment and, at the other end of the spectrum, improving prisoner rehabilitation and cutting re-offending on release.
New ministers will need to review the growth in indeterminate sentencing – which has increased from 3,000 indeterminate sentences in 1992 to 12,822 in March 2010 – recalls for breach of license and any unnecessary use of custodial remand.
Commenting on the launch of the briefing, Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said:
As the new justice secretary has previously acknowledged the current growth in prison numbers is unsustainable. A moratorium on prison building would be a first step in reversing the disastrous legacy of the past two decades which has seen the prison population almost double, while rates of reoffending have rocketed. A measured, evidence-based approach to justice would deliver the prize of increasing public safety while at the same time reducing the cost burden imposed by over use of imprisonment.
Notes
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A copy of the briefing is available here
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On 14 May 2010, the prison population in England and Wales was 85,009. When Ken Clarke was last home secretary from 1992-93, the average prison population was 44,628.
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In France, with the same population as Britain, prison numbers are 59,655 and in Germany with over 20 million more people, 72,043.
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The prison system as a whole has been overcrowded in every year since 1994. Between April 2008 and February 2009 an average of 19,180 prisoners were doubled up in cells designed for one. This accounts for almost a quarter of the prison population.
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Prison has a poor record for reducing reoffending - 49% of adults are reconvicted within one year of being released - for those serving sentences of less than 12 months this increases to 61%. For those who have served more than ten previous custodial sentences the rate of reoffending rises to 79%. 74% of children released from custody in 2008 reoffended within a year.
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In 2007-08, reoffending by all recent ex-prisoners cost the economy between £9.5 billion and £13 billion and as much as three quarters of this cost can be attributed to former short sentenced prisoners: some £7 billion to £10 billion a year.
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Offenders who receive residential drug treatment are 45% less likely to reoffend after release than comparable offenders receiving prison sentences.
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The overall average cost per prison place, including prison related costs met by the National Offender Management Service, but excluding expenditure met by other government departments such as health and education, is £45,000.
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The average construction cost for the ‘core capacity programme ’ (not all new build), including costs of providing ancillary facilities, and excluding running costs, is approximately £170,000 per place across the lifetime of the accommodation.
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During their time at school 7% of children experience their father’s imprisonment. In 2006, more children were affected by the imprisonment of a parent than by divorce in the family.
