Westcountryman

Tories planning new prison places

Conservative leader David Cameron says his party would build 5,000 more prison places in England and Wales - taking capacity in jails to more than 100,000.

Under the plans, older inner-city jails would be sold off to pay for more new prisons on cheaper land elsewhere.

Mr Cameron also wants new "min-max" sentences - with no chance of parole until the minimum term has been served.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw accused him of copying Labour plans, saying the rest of the scheme was "uncosted".

The 5,000 extra spaces would be on top of the 15,000 new prison spaces being created by the government over the next five years.

The package of criminal justice system reforms in the "green paper" also include proposals to:

• Sell off 30 Victorian jails in city centres for redevelopment, with goal of ending overcrowding by 2016
• Bring in tougher community sentences, with offenders wearing uniforms and the withdrawal of benefits for those who do not attend
• Ending automatic early release after half the full term. Prisoners who have passed their minimum term would earn their release with good behaviour, work and progress on rehabilitation programmes, such as drug treatment
• A victims' fund - those serving custodial sentences would pay into the fund through work in prison

Launching the proposals following a visit to Wandsworth Prison, Mr Cameron said: "Almost everything in our criminal justice system is going wrong and our prisons are in crisis."

He told the BBC: "A criminal goes to court - they are told they have got a four year sentence and they are let out after two, so everybody feels cheated.

"We are going to change that and say the judge should read out what we call the 'min-max'.

"And then the prisoner has to earn release through good behaviour, through hard work, through making reparations to their victims."

He added: "The real emphasis on it is actually turning prisons into places not where we just warehouse prisoners and bang them up for 23 hours a day in their cell.

"But they should be places of work, of rehabilitation and of reparation, so that the work prisoners do do, means that they can pay money back to their victims - these are really important policies."

Under the Tory plans, every public sector prison in England and Wales, except the eight high-security establishments, would become an independent fee-earning Prison and Rehabilitation Trust.

The trusts would be able to commission private companies and voluntary organisations, who would also be responsible for inmates after their release.

The trusts would be paid by results, with a bonus f the offender is not reconvicted within two years.

Savings

Shadow justice secretary Nick Herbert said making rehabilitation a priority could bring reconviction rates down by as much as 20% and cut the predicted prison population by 6,000 by 2020.

The savings would produce up to £259m a year to invest in rehabilitation programmes.

Under the "min-max" proposal, judges would set the minimum sentence to be served before probation is considered.

And prison governors would decide exactly when inmates were released, depending upon their conduct in jail.

Prisoners who refuse to engage in rehabilitation programmes or to stay off drugs would stay in custody the longest.

The number of inmates this week in England and Wales hit a record high of 82,180.

Learning in jail

Thousands of prisoners have been released early under emergency measures introduced last summer to tackle overcrowding.

The government says 35,000 prisoners undertook training and employment in 2006/7 and spending on learning in prison has trebled to £164m since 2001.

"We have an existing corporate alliance with 70 employers and we recently announced a big expansion plan," a Ministry of Justice spokesman said.

"We also have 370 workshops around the country employing 10,000 prisoners."

And Mr Straw dismissed what he called "a long and very thin document".

"Most of the sensible bits reheat what we are already doing and the rest of it is either incomprehensible or uncosted or both."

Prisoners off their bunks

David Heath, the Lib Dems' justice spokesman, said: "There is no evidence that our extremely high incarceration rates are doing any good."

But Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, welcomed the Tories' prisons review.

"Our graphic design studio, Barbed in Coldingley Prison, is a beacon of just what could be done to get long term prisoners off their bunks and into purposeful work which pays a real wage and engages them as active citizens," she said.

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, called on the government to establish a royal commission, an ad hoc advisory committee often used to investigate major issues.

Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Politics | Tories planning new prison places

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Porthemmet Beach

mkpdavies

We seem to have a hell of a lot of people in prison now. Maybe (in conjuntion with this), they should be looking hard at why that is.

I suspect it comes down to the foundations of a society that thinks stealing is O.K.

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British-Conservatism

We need about 200,000 more Prison places just to create order.

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The Bear

Our society is close to being on a par with that of the US (unfortunately) yet the proportion of the UK population banged up is dramatically lower.

I note that New Labour are muttering about building more glorified Art Schools (but calling them Universities as usual). A FAR better use of the cash would be to provide a great deal more prison spaces.

Not only that but make prisons a place of PUNISHMENT and NOT just places of incarceration, and above all else bring back both capital and corporal punishment.

g hall

Lets no longer imprison non council tax payers, decriminalise drugs etc., and only lock up those who deserve it and then bring back the chain gang after all the infrastructure of this country is in a disgusting state

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"That government is best which governs least."
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Westcountryman

I agree, we should be locking up violent criminals instead.

Nope, sorry can't agree to that.

And of course, rid of the Playstations, TV etc.

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g hall

I think we've been here before
Legalise Drugs

__________________
"That government is best which governs least."
"This is a sharp Medicine, but it is a Physician for all diseases and miseries".
"To be "matter of fact" about the world is to blunder into fantasy --and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful."

British-Conservatism

If you dont lock up tax dogers no one will pay tax again.
As for Junkies I would lock them all up.

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Westcountryman

Not sure about that. For some I'd argue the prospect of being foreclosed on and made bankrupt would be worse. Of course, for those with little or no assets jail will probably be the better option.

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Porthemmet Beach

mkpdavies

Tax dodgers = people trying to prevent their money being stolen.

No wonder society is in the state it is.

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