Prison policy attracts little public attention until it gets it. After the announcement last week by Shabana Mahmood, the new Justice Secretary, that thousands of prisoners will be released earlier than expected, the issue that has caught the public’s attention.
The reason for Mahmood’s announcement is a simple one. Our prisons are effectively full. This should not come as a surprise to anyone: the prison population has been growing particularly rapidly since early 2023, the growth in prison capacity has not been able to keep up and it was only a matter of time before drastic action was going to have to be taken.
Nor is the crisis over. Releasing prisoners after they have served 40 per cent of their sentence rather than 50 per cent (a policy known as Standard Determinate Sentences – or SDS 40), buys the government some respite but current projections suggest that prison capacity will be reached again in 18 months’ time. It is necessary but not sufficient.
Alex Chalk, the previous justice secretary, had been seeking to implement SDS 40 for some time, recognising that action was urgent. Rishi Sunak, however, sought to delay any announcement until after a general election, aware that the early release scheme would receive much criticism. No wonder Mahmood sounded so furious at the situation she inherited, branding the previous government, in an echo of Michael Foot’s condemnation of Neville Chamberlain and his fellow appeasers, as “the guilty men” (aimed, I suspect, more at Sunak than Chalk).
Announcing SDS 40 may involve an unavoidable political risk of being accused of being soft on criminals but it is also an opportunity. At a time when the country feels relieved at the departure of the Tories and is willing to give Labour the benefit of the doubt, it should be very straightforward to win the argument that the Conservatives are responsible for demand for prison places outstripping supply.
Labour’s criticisms have focused heavily on the failure to build more prison places, a position supported by some on the Tory right such as Suella Braverman. It is certainly true that far more has been promised over the years in terms of new prison places than has been delivered. Projects would be delayed by planning difficulties, at which point the prison-building budget would be raided to pay for day-to-day spending, at which point the prison-building plan would be scaled back. Even as new prison places became available, existing cells in poorly maintained prisons would fall out of use.
There is a more fundamental point, however. We cannot keep increasing the supply of prison cells to meet an apparently inexhaustible demand. Keeping someone in prison costs £49,000 a year. Building a prison cell costs £60,000. There are better ways of spending taxpayers’ money, especially as there is no evidence that a high prison population results in lower levels of crime.
In the Netherlands and Germany, for every 100,000 people in the general population, 65 and 69 respectively are in prison. In England and Wales it is 145. In 1993, the prison population in England and Wales was 43,000. It is now over 88,000, driven by sentence inflation. Even if prisoners are released earlier in their sentence than previously, they are still serving longer than would have been the case a generation ago.
Given these numbers, an ambitious and reforming (and cash-strapped) Labour government should focus on reducing demand on our prisons rather than try to expensively build its way out of the situation.
There was little in the Labour manifesto to suggest radicalism on this front, although some laudable ambitions on rehabilitation were set out. The surprise appointment of James Timpson as prisons minister, however, is very encouraging. Timpson is not responsible for sentencing policy but has a long track record of pursuing the rehabilitation agenda both in his family business and as chair of the Prison Reform Trust. He will bring both energy and expertise to the role.
Necessity breeds invention and even if prison building is accelerated further, action is going to be needed to reduce demand for prison places. As justice secretary, I sought to end the use of short sentences in the large majority of cases, principally because the evidence shows that such sentences are counterproductive in reducing re-offending. Chalk subsequently took up the policy but was not able to implement it for fear of a back-bench rebellion. Mahmood should have no such worries.
Technology and, in particular, the use of electronic tagging provides a great opportunity to use effective and enforceable alternatives to custody. The Justice Secretary should be asking her officials for ambitious plans to expand their use.
Meanwhile, the Tories will have to work out how to respond. There is a temptation to condemn opportunistically the SDS 40 policy which they would have brought in themselves – a temptation some have not been able to resist. But the shadow justice secretary, Ed Argar, is taking a measured approach. What wins headlines and what builds credibility are often in conflict and they would do well to focus on the latter for the moment.
That our prisons are at breaking point is not in doubt. A test for politicians on all sides is whether, in these circumstances, they can embrace a reform agenda that could genuinely make a transformative difference. Our national addiction to lengthening prison sentences makes this difficult but, as the saying goes, never let a good crisis go to waste.
[See also: America’s rhetorical suicide]
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