The UK will run out of prison places again within the next seven years, the justice secretary has admitted, despite plans to build 14,000 new cell spaces in a bid to grip the overcrowding crisis.
The plans, announced by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) on Wednesday, include the building of four new prisons by 2031, but Shabana Mahmood admitted “it’s still not enough”.
The admission comes despite a government pledge to “make sure we can always lock up dangerous criminals” over the next ten years.
Government estimates published last week indicated that more than 100,000 prisoners could be held in jails in England and Wales by 2029.
But the government’s building plan will take the number of usable prison spaces up to just 96,000, Ms Mahmood admitted, saying the shortage is a sign that “we are going to have to do things differently in this country”.
The plan for thousands of new prison places will come alongside a sentencing review, which will be headed by former Tory justice secretary David Gauke and will look at long-term solutions to prison overcrowding.
“What I’ve specifically asked them to do is to make sure that there is always a prison place available for people that have to be locked up for reasons of public protection, that we can do a better job in prisons of helping people turn their lives around so they don’t commit more crimes when they come out, and to expand the use of punishment outside of prison as well, in a way that the public can have confidence in”, Ms Mahmood told Sky News.
The sentencing review is expected to consider scrapping short-term custodial sentences in favour of community sentences, including the use of curfews and ankle tagging.
It comes after a watchdog found that at HMP Kirkham, in Lancashire, boredom was contributing to the highest drug use among open jails in England and Wales – category prisons with the lowest level of security.
The men serving time there said they were “frustrated and bored” and many were using drugs, according to chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor.
In response, the MoJ said the new government “inherited a prison system in crisis”, adding: “Reports like these demonstrate the need for robust action to get the situation back under control.”
Some 6,400 of the new cell spaces will be located at newly built prisons, with £2.3bn being put towards the cost over the next two years.
This capacity strategy will ensure no government runs out of prison places again
The remaining places will be found by measures including building new wings at existing jails, or by refurbishing cells currently out of action, while an extra £500m will go towards “vital building maintenance”, the MoJ said on Wednesday.
However, the plans have sparked concern that towns and villages may be forced to accept the building of prisons on green belt land, as they will be deemed sites of “national importance” amid efforts to prevent lengthy planning delays.
“The green belt will not be safe, whatever caveats the government say they have put in place,” Rosie Pearson, a planning expert and the co-founder of the Community Planning Alliance told The Telegraph.
“It’s the biggest risk to the countryside since the 1930s. Nothing is safe. It’s tearing up the rule book and putting nature, countryside and communities at huge risk, to chase relentless growth”, she said.
It comes ahead of the publication of the government’s changes to the National Planning Policy Framework on Thursday, the guiding document for councils and planners.
Announcing the plans for new prison places, Ms Mahmood criticised the previous government’s record, claiming they “pretended they could send people away for longer and longer without building the prisons they promised”.
“This strategy reveals that their prison building plans were years delayed and nearly £5bn over budget. They left our prisons in crisis, on the edge of collapse.
“Part of our plan for change, this capacity strategy, alongside an independent review of sentencing policy, will keep our streets safe and ensure no government runs out of prison places again”, she said.
We cannot simply build our way out of this crisis, increasing prison capacity and improving the condition of the estate is necessary but must come hand in hand with the commitment to exploring alternatives to custody which the Government is examining via its sentencing review
Since September thousands of inmates have been freed early in a bid to cut jail overcrowding, by temporarily reducing the proportion of sentences which some prisoners must serve behind bars in England and Wales, from 50 per cent to 40 per cent.
Ms Mahmood promised that such action would never be taken again by the government, saying: “I’m not going to do any more emergency releases of the kind, either at the beginning [of this parliament] or as the last Conservative government did with their early release scheme as well. I want to avoid that scenario. We will not be doing that.”
But shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick accused Chancellor Rachel Reeves of funding “inflation-busting pay rises for her trade union paymasters, but not new prisons to keep the public safe”.
Meanwhile, Pavan Dhaliwal, chief executive of charity Revolving Doors, warned: “We cannot simply build our way out of this crisis, increasing prison capacity and improving the condition of the estate is necessary but must come hand in hand with the commitment to exploring alternatives to custody which the government is examining via its sentencing review.”
Andrea Coomber, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said the money earmarked for opening new jails “would be better invested in securing an effective and responsive probation service, working to cut crime in the community”.
While the Law Society of England and Wales repeated calls for the plans to be matched by investment in legal aid, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts, and urged a focus on the “rehabilitation for prisoners to reduce reoffending rates and tackle the courts backlogs to help bring down the remand population”.
