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BRIEFING PAPER

Number 05646, 12 February 2016

Building prisons in England and Wales: the bigger, the better?

By Gabrielle Garton Grimwood

Inside: 1. Introduction: The rise, fall and

rise again of the prison population

2. The prison estate from June 2015: building “new for old”

3. Building bigger prisons and closing smaller prisons: is bigger necessarily better?

4. Will a rising prison population defeat the MoJ’s plans?

5. The prison estate 1997 to 2015

6. The “Titan” prison proposals

Number 05646, 12 February 2016 2

Contents Summary 3

1. Introduction: The rise, fall and rise again of the prison population 5

2. The prison estate from June 2015: building “new for old” 6 2.1 “The treasure in the heart of man”: the aims of prison 6 2.2 A prison building revolution? 7 2.3 Diamonds in the rough? 8

3. Building bigger prisons and closing smaller prisons: is bigger necessarily better? 12

4. Will a rising prison population defeat the MoJ’s plans? 15

5. The prison estate 1997 to 2015 17 5.1 The Labour Government’s capacity expansion programmes 17

Core capacity programme 17 New prisons programme 17 Building its way out of a crisis? Criticism of Labour’s prison building programme 18

5.2 Policies of the coalition Government 18 January 2011 to December 2012 - two new prisons and prison closures 19 Prison capacity: statements in January 2013, September 2013 and November 2013 20

5.3 June 2013 new prison announcement 22

6. The “Titan” prison proposals 23 6.1 Views from penal experts and Parliament 23 6.2 Ministry of Justice consultation and the demise of Titan prisons 26

Cover page image copyright: Gloucester Prison by quisnovus. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 / image cropped.

3 Building prisons in England and Wales: the bigger, the better?

Summary This Commons Library briefing describes the expansion of the prison estate as successive governments have sought to keep pace with the rise in the prison population – a rise that accelerated in the early 1990s.

It examines

• The rise, fall and projected rise again of the prison population • The current Government’s plans to increase prison capacity by building “new for

old” and selling off Victorian prisons in city centres • The Government’s preference for larger prisons on the grounds that they are more

efficient • What the increasing size of prisons might mean for prisons’ ability to reduce

reoffending and provide decent, safe and effective regimes and • The Labour Government’s abandoned plans for even bigger “Titan” prisons

The prison population rose sharply from the early 1990s, but has more recently levelled off. In December 2011 it reached a record high of 88,179, but since then has fluctuated at around 85,000 and is currently at 85,461 (including those held in immigration removal centres, as at 29 January 2016). The prison population is projected (according to the MoJ’s most recent projection) to reach 89,900 by March 2021.

From 1997, the Labour Government undertook various initiatives to expand the capacity of the prison estate, to ensure it kept up with the rising prison population. It also aimed to increase efficiency.

Its two major prison building programmes were the Core Capacity Programme (which was to provide 12,500 places by 2012) and the New Prisons Programme (which was to provide a further 7,500 places alongside the closure of 5,500 inefficient places). Originally three “Titan” prisons were to provide those 7,500 places. This proposal, however, attracted a great deal of controversy and criticism. It was suggested that Titan prisons would be difficult to manage, would not help to tackle re-offending and would not address the more fundamental problem of the UK’s over-reliance (as some commentators see it) on imprisonment. The plan for Titan prisons was subsequently abandoned.

The Conservative party manifesto at the 2010 general election offered a commitment to increasing the capacity of the prison estate to meet demand. The Liberal Democrat party’s manifesto, on the other hand, stated that their proposals to reduce the prison population would end the need for the building programme. Under the coalition Government, the contract for the new Thameside prison was let and a competition launched for a new prison in Wales at Wrexham. At the same time, the Ministry of Justice announced the closure of several prisons, as it sought to replace older prisons with new capacity and so bring down operating costs.

The current Government has continued these policies. Many commentators have suggested that the appointment of Michael Gove as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice will mean a shift in the Ministry of Justice’s policies towards prisons and other criminal justice matters. Some key policies of his predecessor, Chris Grayling, such as new dual contracting arrangements for criminal legal aid provision and a further cut in fees paid, have since been abandoned or postponed. Even so, the Ministry of Justice remains committed to the policy of “new for old”, selling off antiquated prisons (which they argue are less efficient and less cost-effective) in city centre sites in favour of building new prisons to better designs.

Number 05646, 12 February 2016 4

Michael Gove has argued that the drive to reduce reoffending could be helped by closing ageing and ineffective Victorian prisons and building new, safer and more efficient prisons:

That’s why I think we have to consider closing down the ageing and ineffective Victorian prisons in our major cities, reducing the crowding and ending the inefficiencies which blight the lives of everyone in them and building new prisons which embody higher standards in every way they operate. The money which could be raised from selling off inner city sites for development would be significant.

It could be re-invested in a modern prison estate where prisoners do not have to share overcrowded accommodation but also where the dark corners that facilitate bullying, drug-taking and violence could increasingly be designed out.

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, has recently outlined his commitment to prison reform, saying that he wanted to see a “modern, more effective, truly twenty-first century prison system”. The reforms would follow the general pattern of the Government’s reforms to other public services. New prisons could (he argued) help raise standards, as many older prisons were inadequate:

These are places that were barely fit for human habitation when they were built, and are much, much worse today.

Although (he said) prison is needed for serious offenders, simple incapacitation was not enough and there are “diminishing returns” in increasing levels of incarceration.

The Justice Select Committee, though, has investigated prison planning and policies and has questioned whether the Ministry of Justice will be able to achieve its aims. The Committee agreed that the new for old policy was right in principle, but identified various factors - such as the need to keep open older prisons, to cope with a rising prison population – which might get in the way of implementation.

In similar vein, Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, has also suggested that the plan might prove to be unworkable:

I do not think this will work, not least because we have been here before. … Some of the prisons are not owned by the Ministry of Justice but by the Queen or rich landlords. So the Ministry may not get the profit from any sale. The cart and horse argument is pretty tricky too, as you have to build the new prison to house people before you flog off the old one. New prisons get filled up immediately so you end up with the full new one and the full old one …

The proposed size of the prison at Wrexham (and another new prison to replace Feltham young offenders’ institution) has revived some of the arguments about Titan prisons and the optimum size for any prison establishment. Is bigger better or, conversely, is small beautiful?

Other Commons Library briefings on prisons are available on Parliament’s topic page for prisons.

5 Building prisons in England and Wales: the bigger, the better?

1. Introduction: The rise, fall and rise again of the prison population

What lies beneath the growth in the prison population?

Since 2011, the prison population has fluctuated at around 85,000. It currently stands at 85,461 (including those held in immigration removal centres, as at 29 January 2016).

The MoJ’s latest projections suggest that the prison population may rise to 86,700 by the end of June 2016 and to 89,900 by March 2021.1

For a discussion of the factors underlying the growth of the prison population, see the Commons Library briefing papers

• Prison population and overcrowding: key issues for the 2015 Parliament (May 2015)

• Reducing reoffending: the “what works” debate (December 2012) and

• Prison population: social indicators page (November 2015)

The prison population rose sharply from the early 1990s, but has more recently levelled off. In December 2011 it reached a record high of 88,179, but since then has fluctuated at around 85,000 and is currently at 85,461 (including those held in immigration removal centres, as at 29 January 2016).2

The MoJ’s most recent projections indicate that they are expecting the prison population to rise again and could reach 89,900 by March 2021.3

Successive governments have sought to keep pace with a rising prison population and, at the same time, to replace old and inefficient prisons with more modern provision. More recently, a drop in the prison population has reduced the pressure to increase prison capacity, although the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) continues to seek ways of reducing costs.

A particularly noticeable trend in the prison population has been the fall in the number of young inmates; the under-21 age group accounted for around a tenth of the prison population at its peak in March 2012, but has accounted for three-quarters of the fall in the total prison population since then. There have been falls across most sentence-duration categories, including a large percentage fall in the number of prisoners serving a sentence of six months or less (down 22% between March 2012 and December 2013).4

1 MoJ, Statistics Bulletin, Prison Population Projections 2015 – 2021 England and Wales, 26 November 2015

2 MoJ Population and capacity briefing for Friday 29 January 2016 3 MoJ, Statistics Bulletin, Prison Population Projections 2015 – 2021 England and

Wales, 26 November 2015. The projected rise in the prison population is largely due (the MoJ says) to “recent trends in offender case mix, where we have seen more serious cases (e.g. sexual offences) come before the courts. This results in offenders receiving longer custodial sentence lengths, which in turn places an upward pressure on the prison population”.

4 MoJ Offender management statistics quarterly

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2. The prison estate from June 2015: building “new for old”

The MoJ has indicated that it will continue with the “new for old” approach, replacing old and outdated prisons with new ones with better design. These might (Ministers argue) increase opportunities for rehabilitation and reduce costs and inefficiencies, whilst making it easier to tackle endemic problems such as violence and drug-taking.

It is also pressing ahead with plans for the new prison in Wrexham.

2.1 “The treasure in the heart of man”: the aims of prison

In a speech which many commentators suggested was evidence that his arrival as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice heralded a radical change of approach, Michael Gove lamented the failings of the prison system, particularly its failure to rehabilitate prisoners.5

He argued that there would always be a need for punishment, to uphold the law and support the weak, but quoted Sir Winston Churchill’s views about the place of punishment and rehabilitation:

As Winston Churchill argued, there should be “a constant heart-searching by all charged with the duty of punishment, a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate in the world of industry all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment, tireless efforts towards the discovery of curative and regenerating processes and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man.” 6

He also argued that any “one nation” government must be committed to tackling reoffending. This (he went on) would be helped by closing ageing and ineffective Victorian prisons and investing the proceeds of their sale in new prisons, which would be safer and more secure:

That’s why I think we have to consider closing down the ageing and ineffective Victorian prisons in our major cities, reducing the crowding and ending the inefficiencies which blight the lives of everyone in them and building new prisons which embody higher standards in every way they operate. The money which could be raised from selling off inner city sites for development would be significant.

It could be re-invested in a modern prison estate where prisoners do not have to share overcrowded accommodation but also where the dark corners that facilitate bullying, drug-taking and violence could increasingly be designed out.7

5 See, for example, “Prison education must be 'overhauled', Michael Gove says”, BBC News online, 17 July 2015, Frances Crook’s blog post Michael Gove and prisons on the Howard league for Penal Reform website and (following a later speech at the Conservative Party conference) Nigel Morris, “Michael Gove pledges to bring 'reforming zeal' to the prison system”, Independent online, 6 October 2015

6 MoJ, The treasure in the heart of man - making prisons work, 17 July 2015 7 Ibid

Plans for the prison at Wrexham are discussed in the Welsh Affairs Committee’s report Prisons in Wales and the treatment of Welsh offenders (March 2015) and in the Government’s response (September 2015).

7 Building prisons in England and Wales: the bigger, the better?

Frances Crook of the Howard League for Penal Reform, though, suggested that the plan might prove to be unworkable, especially if the old prisons remained full and the MoJ still needed their capacity:

I do not think this will work, not least because we have been here before. The Conservatives looked at this in some detail before the 2010 election and it was fraught with problems. Some of the prisons are not owned by the Ministry of Justice but by the Queen or rich landlords. So the Ministry may not get the profit from any sale. The cart and horse argument is pretty tricky too, as you have to build the new prison to house people before you flog off the old one. New prisons get filled up immediately so you end up with the full new one and the full old one – one reason why the prison estate has steadily expanded over the years.8

2.2 A prison building revolution? In November 2015, with the Chancellor, George Osborne, Michael Gove announced a “prison building revolution”, in which £1.3 billion would be spent on building 10,000 new prison places – many of them in nine new prisons – and reforming prison infrastructure. Outdated prisons in city centres would (they said) be closed.9 The statement promised that five of these new prisons would be opened by the end of this Parliament, but no announcement has yet been made about where they might be. Officials at NOMS have indicated that any such public statement is probably some way off.10 In the meantime, junior minister for prisons, probation and rehabilitation, Andrew Selous, has again given a broad indication of what the MoJ hopes to achieve through the prison building programme, by improving prison design and opportunities for rehabilitation and realising money through the sale of no longer wanted estate:

On 9 November the Chancellor and Secretary of State announced their intention to build a prison estate which allows prisoners to be rehabilitated, thereby enabling them to turn away from a life of crime. This will involve building nine new prisons and closing old and inefficient prisons which do not support the aims of a redesigned estate. No decisions have yet been made on where new prisons will be built.

We are currently considering which of our old and inefficient prisons will close. We will engage with stakeholders during the process of sale including valuation experts and potential developers in order to maximise the value achieved.11

More recently, in January 2016, he reiterated that new prisons would provide better facilities and enable prison governors to tackle persistent problems such as bullying and violence:

It is excellent news that the Chancellor committed to invest £1.3 billion to build nine new prisons in addition to the new prison that we are building in north Wales, which has not had a prison for well over 100 years. We will design out the features of the new

8 Frances Crook, Michael Gove and prisons, 17 July 2015 9 HM Treasury and MoJ, Prison building revolution announced by Chancellor and

Justice Secretary, 9 November 2015 10 Personal communication, 2 February 2016 11 PQ 16112 of 23 November 2015

Further discussion of the Government’s plans for prison reform can be found in House of Lords In Focus, HM Government’s proposals for prison reform, LIF 2016/002, 18 January 2016

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prisons that facilitate bullying, drug taking and violence, so that we get on top of those problems.12

2.3 Diamonds in the rough? In February 2016, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, gave a speech in which he repeated his call (made in 2009) for league tables for prisons and argued that, in tackling deep-rooted social problems, prisons should not be a no go area.

He argued that prison reform should be a “great progressive cause” and set out his vision for a “modern, more effective, truly twenty-first century prison system”. He described too why the failure of the current system mattered:

It matters to the public purse: this cycle of reoffending costs up to £13 billion a year.

It matters to you: because in the end, who are the victims of this re-offending? It’s the mother who gets burgled or the young boy who gets mugged.

It matters to the prison staff - some of the most deeply committed public servants in our country – who have to work in dangerous and often intimidating conditions.

And yes, it matters to the prisoners themselves, who mustn’t feel that society has totally given up on them.13

David Cameron went on to argue against the views that had (he said) held back progress. The ‘lock ‘em up’ or ‘let ‘em out’ debate was (he argued) sterile and had got in the way of real change. Prison was (he maintained) needed for serious offenders, but simple incapacitation was not enough.14 He referred to the “diminishing returns” of increasing levels of incarceration:

And the truth is that simply warehousing ever more prisoners is not financially sustainable, nor is it necessarily the most cost-effective way of cutting crime. 15

From here, David Cameron set out the principles of the reform he wanted to see, which would follow the pattern of reforms to other public services:

One: give much greater autonomy to the professionals who work in our public services, and allow new providers and new ideas to flourish.

(…)

Two: hold these providers and professionals to account with real transparency over outcomes.

(…)

12 HC Deb 27 January 2016 c378 13 “Cameron prison reform speech in full”, politics.co.uk, 8 February 2016 14 ‘incapacitation’, that is, the value in putting offenders in custody so that they are not

able to offend, is discussed in the Commons Library briefing Reducing reoffending: the “what works” debate (RP12/73, 23 November 2012): see in particular chapter 1 on the purposes of imprisonment and incapacitation.

15 “Cameron prison reform speech in full”, politics.co.uk, 8 February 2016

9 Building prisons in England and Wales: the bigger, the better?

Three: intervene decisively and dramatically to deal with persistent failure, or to fix the underlying problems people may have.

(…)

Four: use the latest behavioural insights evidence and harness new technology to deliver better outcomes.

(…)

By applying these principles, I believe we really can deliver a modern, more effective prisons system that has a far better chance of turning prisoners into productive members of society.

David Cameron wanted, he said, prisons to be places of care. He set out how new prisons could help raise standards:

I think it’s frankly a disgrace that for so long we’ve been cramming people into ageing, ineffective prisons that are creaking, leaking and coming apart at the seams.

These are places that were barely fit for human habitation when they were built, and are much, much worse today.

(…)

So I am proud that this this Government has made a £1.3 billion commitment to knock many of these prisons down and to build nine new ones, including five during this Parliament.

As Policy Exchange’s work has shown, these new prisons can be far more effective at rehabilitating offenders, with modern facilities and smart use of technology such as biometric key systems. 16

He also described at more length what he envisaged, which included

• greater operational and financial autonomy for prison governors would remove “bureaucratic micromanagement” which (he said) infantilised prison staff

• adopting the academies model used for schools • creating six “reform prisons” this year, run by “some of the most

innovative governors” • a strong role for businesses and charities in operating the reform

prisons and the new prisons to be built in this Parliament • developing “meaningful metrics” about prison performance and • a Prisons Bill in the next session which would spread these

principles across the rest of the prison system.

The prison system was (he said) in some ways stuck in the dark ages, but diamonds could be found in the rough and enabled to shine:

If we get it right, we can change lives, improve public safety and bring hope to those for whom it was in short supply.

Turning waste and idleness into prisons with purpose.

Turning remorse and regret into lives with new meaning.

Finding diamonds in the rough and helping them shine.17

16 “Cameron prison reform speech in full”, politics.co.uk, 8 February 2016 17 Ibid

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The reaction to David Cameron’s speech was generally positive, although some commentators pointed to potential pitfalls and problems to be overcome.

Frances Crook, the chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, welcomed the speech, saying that it created an opportunity for “radical and rational thinking”, although prison reform was the tip of the iceberg and issues such as sentence inflation and overuse of prison needed urgent action:18

"Prisons are currently violent and overcrowded. As such, they fail everyone: victims, the public, staff and prisoners themselves.

"Prison reform, however, is the tip of the iceberg. Improved education and increased autonomy for governors will not work if there are people crammed into filthy institutions with no staff to open the cell doors. We need action now to tackle sentence inflation and the profligate use of prison. Then the Prime Minister's vision can become a reality.”19

The Roman Catholic bishop of Arundel and Brighton, the church’s lead bishop for prisons in England and Wales, also welcomed the speech, describing the treatment of prisoners as a “pressing moral challenge”:

In a statement, Bishop Richard Moth of Arundel and Brighton said he was “very encouraged by the Prime Minister’s commitment to reforming our prison system and his recognition that prisoners should be treated as assets to our society rather than liabilities to be managed. How we treat prisoners is one of the most pressing moral challenges today and something that none of us should ignore.”20

Writing on the Conservative Home website, the associate director for public services at the Institute for Public Policy Research, Jonathan Clifton, agreed that prisons were currently not providing an effective service, but argued that league tables and the like could only go so far in raising standards, because so many factors – such as sentencing decisions – were outside prison governors’ control:

[The reforms] all hold much promise for the prison system – giving governors stronger incentives and more freedom to tailor their prison regimes towards rehabilitation can only be a good thing. Anything that promotes transparency in our closed prison system should be welcomed.

But as Gove discovered with his school reforms, autonomy and league tables can only go so far in the face of major structural challenges.

Many of the problems facing our prison system are linked to factors that lie outside of the control of prison governors – such as the sentencing decisions made by courts, funding cuts to the

18 The issue of ratcheting-up of sentences is discussed in the Commons Library briefing Reducing reoffending: the “what works” debate (RP12/73, 23 November 2012): see in particular chapter 3 on the competing views of prison, influences on sentencing decisions and whether reducing the prison population could be a matter of political will.

19 Howard League for Penal Reform media release, Howard League responds to Prime Minister’s prison reform proposals, 8 February 2016

20 “Bishop ‘encouraged’ by David Cameron’s plan for prison reform”, Catholic Herald online, 9 February 2016

11 Building prisons in England and Wales: the bigger, the better?

ministry of justice, and the quality of probation and community services that could tackle the underlying causes of crime.21

Some commentators were more sceptical about the Prime Minister’s commitment to reform. An article on the Spectator’s blog questioned David Cameron’s commitment to prison reform and quoted the views of the director of the Prison Reform Trust:

His motives may seem worthy but it’s arguable he is merely paying lip service to an issue which has been bubbling along under his watch for years. That much appeared to be the view of the Prison Reform Trust’s Juliet Lyon. Speaking on Today, Lyon criticised the PM for turning late to the issue.

(…) Juliet Lyon was then asked what she made of the reforms. She said:

‘If it is genuinely part of a social legacy programme then it is welcome.’

(…)

But as with his criticism of Oxford [for not admitting more students from black and minority ethnic backgrounds], which seemed to spring out of nowhere, so, too, his labelling of the state of prisons as ‘scandalous’ looks like a nod to legacy rather than a view based on genuine desire to reform. The Prison Officers’ Association warned in 2012 that jails were in a state of ‘crisis’. Four years on, without another election to fight, the PM says he keen to do something about it. But is it too late to take him seriously?22

Laura Bates of the Everyday Sexism project, argued that David Cameron’s planned reforms, to take mothers and babies out of the prison environment, did not go far enough and more would need to be done, to provide both preventative work and suitable alterative provision for mothers who offend.23

21 Jonathan Clifton: How progressive are the Prime Minister’s prison reforms?, Conservative Home, 8 February 2016

22 Tom Goodenough, “Are we really supposed to believe David Cameron cares about reforming prisons?”, Spectator blog online, 8 February 2016

23 Laura Bates, “Babies behind bars: why Cameron’s support of prison reform falls short”, Guardian online, 11 February 2016

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3. Building bigger prisons and closing smaller prisons: is bigger necessarily better?

One concern that has been expressed in the light of the decision to build a 2,000-place prison in Wrexham and to replace the Feltham young offender institution with a large new adult prison and adjoining youth facility is that prisons are becoming bigger, as smaller, older prisons close, to be replaced by larger prisons.24

Some commentators argue that larger prisons function less well and are less likely to help prisoners to quit offending as they are held farther from their homes, but others argue that they are the most cost-effective option (providing economies of scale) and that a prison’s size does not, in itself, determine its decency, safety or effectiveness.

The Prison Reform Trust (PRT) has drawn attention to the trend, describing the new prisons as “Titan prisons by stealth”:

On current trends the proposed changes will result in around 38,000 people held in 30 supersized jails across the country, the Prison Reform Trust's analysis of the latest prison population statistics and projections reveals. This represents nearly half of the total number of people behind bars in England in Wales.

(…)

The top three supersized jails are all in the private sector: G4S-run Oakwood (1,600) Birmingham (1,436) and Sodexo-led Forest Bank (1,348). A full list of 1,000 plus prisons is published below.25

An earlier PRT briefing, published in 2008, drawing on a comparison by HM Inspectorate of Prisons of large and small prisons, based on 154 factors, argued that the weight of evidence was against larger prisons, which were consistently poorer at meeting prisoner needs and creating a healthy prison environment:

This ongoing and respected series of reports reinforce the views of prison officers and prison governors by demonstrating that it is the country’s biggest prisons - themselves only half the size of the proposed Titans - that cause the biggest problems. In evidence to MPs in December 2007, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, noted:

‘It has to be said that the prisons about which the Inspectorate has historically been most worried are the large, inner-city, local prisons’.

The briefing also quoted the views of Lord Woolf and criminologist Professor Alison Liebling:

Lord Woolf in his seminal report on the prison system following the disturbances at Strangeways prison recommended prisons ‘should not normally hold more than 400 prisoners … the

24 MoJ press release, Modernisation of the prison estate, 4 September 2013 25 Prison Reform Trust, News: Nearly half of all prisoners to be warehoused in 1,000

plus super-sized jails, 30 October 2013

13 Building prisons in England and Wales: the bigger, the better?

evidence suggests that if these figures are exceeded, there can be a marked fall off in all aspects of the performance of a prison’.

Professor Alison Liebling, of the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge cites ‘several analyses of prison life and quality provide empirical support for the argument that “small is better”’.26

David Cameron was quoted in 2009 as arguing that, in the case of prisons, big was not beautiful:

The idea that big is beautiful with prisons is wrong … I have spent some time in prison – purely in a professional capacity – at Wandsworth prison and was profoundly depressed by the size and impersonality"27

Appearing before the Justice Committee in 2010, the then Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Kenneth Clarke, was questioned about whether he would choose to build prisons of 1,500 places. He suggested that prisons of this size might represent a “cost-effective balance” between economic benefit and risk of failure:

I remember when I was not shadowing this Department being rather alarmed by the idea of building [Titan] prisons, which poses all sorts of problems. We will make a judgment in the individual case. There are undoubtedly economic benefits in having large prisons. It is inescapable; it is rather like large hospitals. But you do have to make a judgment about how far that helps you and, on the other hand, what the risks are in managing such a prison when you go forward.28

Support for the concept of larger prisons came some time after this from a report by the think tank Policy Exchange, which recommended “hub prisons” of up to 3,000 places:

Hub Prisons would be large establishments of between 2,500–3,000 places. They would be designed to be operated as a number of semi-autonomous units sharing a common site and set of services; provide operational flexibility to respond to changes in the size and profile of the prison population; be built on brownfield sites, helping to drive wider community and social benefits; and be located strategically to enable good connection with main transport routes and to hold more prisoners as close to home as possible.29

The author of the report (himself a former prison governor) dismissed as a “myth” the idea that smaller prisons were inherently better, arguing that it was a prison’s age, not its size, which determined decency, safety and effectiveness:

Newer prisons perform better than older prisons, regardless of size. When comparing establishments with the same functions, reoffending levels, respect between staff and prisoners, decency, quality of life and safety measures are all higher for newer prisons than for older ones.

26 Prison Reform Trust, Titan prisons: A gigantic mistake, (undated) 27 Helen Carter “David Cameron calls for league tables to improve UK prisons”,

Guardian online, 6 January 2009 28 Justice Committee, The work of the Ministry of Justice: Minutes of evidence, HC

378-i, 2010-12, 21 July 2010: Q56ff 29 Kevin Lockyer, Future prisons: A radical plan to reform the prison estate, Policy

Exchange, June 2013: page 6

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For a long time, it has been assumed, without evidence, that smaller prisons outperform larger ones. But size is irrelevant. When it comes to prisons, we prove that, contrary to popular myth, small is not good and big is not bad. This is a potentially game-changing contention – and one which offers exciting opportunities for reform.30

30 Kevin Lockyer, Future prisons: A radical plan to reform the prison estate, Policy Exchange, June 2013: page 6

15 Building prisons in England and Wales: the bigger, the better?

4. Will a rising prison population defeat the MoJ’s plans?

In its March 2015 report Prisons: Planning and policies, the Justice Committee expressed some scepticism (in the context of estimates of the savings arising from building the new prison at Wrexham) about NOMS’ ability, because of the rising prison population, actually to close the old inefficient prison places and therefore realise the savings.

The Committee concluded that the modernisation policy was good in principle, although (it observed) the National Audit Office (NAO) had reached the view that the closures of smaller prisons were more about cost savings than they were about performance.

The Committee remarked too on the decrepit state of some prisons:

We recognise in particular that some prisons have been operating, and some continue to operate, with decrepit buildings that hinder effective rehabilitation; and we note that redesign and re-configuration provide the opportunity for new technologies and their resulting efficiencies to be embedded in the infrastructure of the prison estate. 31

The Committee noted too that prisons were often not in the most useful or appropriate locations, often being in rural areas, far from prisoners’ homes:

Phil Wheatley CB, former Director General of NOMS, explained that decisions about where and when to build new prisons were constrained by several factors, including the imprecise nature of forecasting, the time taken to build new places, securing the necessary finance from the Treasury, and getting planning permission. The Prison Officers’ Association characterised NOMS’ approach as building where it was cheapest and moving the prisoners accordingly.32

The Committee considered the evidence that had been put before it about the new for old programme.

It noted that various benefits had been ascribed to newer prisons, ranging from making more use of technology and reducing various costs to enabling the prison to run with fewer staff.33 Nonetheless, the Committee also identified several potential problems or pitfalls which might get in the way of the MoJ’s plans to close old, inefficient prisons and replace them with new and better-designed prisons.

Closing prisons - however antiquated they might be - still (the Committee suggested) posed considerable challenges. HM Prison Dartmoor was a case in point:

For example, when we visited HMP Dartmoor during our inquiry into older prisoners it was clear to us that the facilities were unsuitable for current purposes, and modernisation was not

31 Justice Committee, Prisons: Planning and Policies, 18 March 2015, HC 309 2014-15: page 19

32 Ibid: page 10 33 Ibid: page 9

Number 05646, 12 February 2016 16

feasible, not least because it is a listed building. The Government has now announced that it has commenced negotiations with the Duchy of Cornwall, which owns the prison, about its closure. However, given that there is a notice period of 10 years it is likely to continue to operate for some years to come.34

Opening new prisons could bring fresh problems of its own, not least because new establishments tended not to perform well in their early days.35 The Committee also expressed some concern about the increasing homogeneity of prison provision and a trend towards “one size fits all”, as (it argued) the system became less diverse:

The apparent trend towards less diverse prison provision may have been influenced by recent Government policies which have included the replacement of young offender institutions, secure training centres and secure children’s homes with secure colleges, the planned closure of open prisons and reduction in mother and baby units for women, and the proposed abolition of specialist institutions for young adults.36

The Committee looked ahead to the MoJ’s projections of what the prison population might be by June 2020.37 It noted too that the time and cost of building a new prison would mean that it might take decades before seeing any savings. Even these might not be seen if the old prisons had to remain open to cope with a rising prison population:

In addition, these savings are dependent on the consequent closure of older and more expensive places, which might not be possible if future demand tends towards the upper end of what are inevitably imperfect projections.38

In its recommendations, the Committee concluded that the Government had not addressed questions about how the size of a prison related to its performance.39 The MoJ had also (the Committee said) failed to plan for some of the consequences of modernisation:

When prisons are going through transition, whether that takes the form of opening, changing purpose, merging, or becoming managed by another sector, levels of performance are typically affected, at least in the short-term. There may well be unanticipated and unquantified costs of reconfiguring the prison estate in this manner. If the pressure to expand capacity continues, so too will the need for ongoing adaptations of the estate, with the risk that some establishments may be in a constant state of flux.40

In its response to the Justice Committee, the MoJ welcomed the Committee’s broad support for its new for old policy.41

34 Justice Committee, Prisons: Planning and Policies, 18 March 2015, HC 309 2014-15: page 10

35 Ibid: page 12 36 Ibid: page 17 37 Ibid: page 8 38 Ibid: page 19 39 Ibid: page 19 40 Ibid: pages 12-3 41 MoJ, Government Response to the Justice Committee’s Ninth Report of Session

2014-15: Prisons: Planning and Policies, Cm 9114, July 2015: page 6

17 Building prisons in England and Wales: the bigger, the better?

5. The prison estate 1997 to 2015

5.1 The Labour Government’s capacity expansion programmes

By the end of the Labour Government, it had provided over 27,000 places since 1997, although not all through new build.42

There were two main programmes to provide new prison places, intended to permit modernisation of the prison estate and the closure of worn-out, inefficient places:

• the Core Capacity Programme covered piecemeal expansion through expansions at existing prisons, more effective use of the estate together with some new prisons.

• the New Prisons Programme, resulting from the Carter review, involved the construction of new large prisons. The initial proposals were for three “Titan” prisons each housing 2,500 prisoners, but these were scaled down to five prisons each housing 1,500 prisoners.

According to the National Offender Management Service (NOMS), the position as it stood in April 2010 was as follows:43

Core capacity programme • The programme aimed to provide 12,500 additional places in new

and existing prisons by 2012 • Places were being provided through expansions at existing

prisons, more effective use of the estate and new prisons. • The capital construction cost of the Core Capacity Programme

was estimated at about £2bn. • The annual running cost of Core Capacity Programme, once the

programme had been completed, was estimated to be just over £500m.

• New prisons in the public sector: Kennet, Littlehey (next to the existing prison), Bure (formerly RAF Coltishall) and Isis.

• New prisons in the private sector: Belmarsh West and Maghull (and one prison ─ Featherstone 244 ─ whose operator was still the subject of a competition).

• One Young Offender Institution ─ Glen Parva ─ was planned to be built in partnership with the Youth Justice Board.

New prisons programme • This programme aimed to provide 7,500 places in up to five new

1,500 place prisons, and to close up to 5,500 worn out, inefficient places.

• Outline planning permission had been submitted for the first 1,500 place new prison at Runwell, Essex. Site searches were underway in areas of greatest strategic need (West Yorkshire, North Wales, North West England and Greater London).

42 National Offender Management Service, Personal communication, 30 April 2010 43 Unless otherwise referenced, all figures quoted here were provided by NOMS in a

personal communication, 30 April 2010 44 Now HM Prison Oakwood

Number 05646, 12 February 2016 18

• Capital cost of constructing five 1,500 place prisons had been estimated to be around £1.2bn excluding VAT and site purchase costs.

Capacity and Competition Policy for Prisons and Probation summarised recent developments.45

Building its way out of a crisis? Criticism of Labour’s prison building programme Commentators were critical of the Labour Government’s reliance on building more prison places as a means of coping with the increased prison population – a point picked up by the Justice Committee in its report on justice reinvestment (discussed later).

A former HM chief inspector of prisons, Lord Ramsbotham, criticised Labour’s "torrent of hastily and ill-thought through legislation" on criminal justice and lack of a clear strategy:

Highlighting the rise in reoffending, [Lord Ramsbotham] poses the question: "Is the public being protected?" before adding: "If reoffending is used as a measure of that, the answer is a resounding no. When New Labour took over in 1997, the reoffending rate for adult male prisoners stood at 55% within two years of release. It now stands at 67%."46

The PRT argued in 2008 that building more prisons was a “failing strategy”. Unless the growth in the prison population was halted, Titan prisons could be no more than an expensive but short-term solution. The MoJ’s projections of the prison population should (the PRT said) be regarded as a warning of what lay ahead.47

The former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf (who led the inquiry into the riot at Manchester’s Strangeways prison) also spoke against successive Home Secretaries’ encouragement of harsher sentencing and the resulting overcrowding in prisons:

In such a severe economic crisis it is folly to have policies that make the prison population substantially higher than is necessary. Many US states are introducing policies to cut the number of prisoners, which, in turn, has cut reoffending. We must do the same.48

5.2 Policies of the coalition Government In the aftermath of the formation of the coalition Government, conjecture surrounded its plans for the prison building programme and whether that programme could or should be shelved as the Government’s criminal justice policies took effect. There was speculation about whether the Government would continue with the prison building programme, especially as remarks by Kenneth Clarke

45 See, for example, MoJ, Capacity and Competition Policy for Prisons and Probation, April 2009: page 8

46 Karen McVeigh, “Former chief inspector says Labour left 'dysfunctional' prison service in crisis” Guardian online, 24 May 2010

47 Prison Reform Trust, Titan prisons: A gigantic mistake, August 2008: page 10 48 Lord Woolf, “Britain’s ballooning prison population is a disastrous mess” Times

online, 27 May 2010 [paywall]

19 Building prisons in England and Wales: the bigger, the better?

appeared to cast doubt on whether a prison population of more than 85,000 was necessary or sustainable.

In an interview in June 2010, Kenneth Clarke questioned why the prison population should be twice what it was when he was Home Secretary from 1992 to 1993.49 Likewise, his remarks in a speech to the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies ─ in which he described the size of the prison population as “astonishing ─ were interpreted by some commentators as a shift away from the use of prison as a political tool. Kenneth Clarke observed that there would always be a need for imprisonment for those who had committed serious offences, but questioned whether the vast rise in the prison population had in itself protected the public against crime or whether the public felt safer. He rejected, though, the notion that sentencing decisions should reflect considerations of cost and said that the MoJ was still letting contracts for new prisons.50

January 2011 to December 2012 - two new prisons and prison closures As the projections for prison population in future years reduced, the MoJ took the opportunity to close older, more costly prison places.51

In January 2011, the MoJ announced the closure of two prisons (HM Prisons Lancaster Castle and Ashwell) and the changing of a third (HM Prison Morton Hall) into an Immigration Removal Centre, with the total loss of around 849 places. In July 2011, it announced the closure of two more prisons (HM Prisons Latchmere House and Brockhill) with the further loss of 377 places.52

In March 2012, the MoJ announced that two new prisons would begin opening that year, providing around 2,500 additional places by March 2013. HM Prison Thameside, which would provide around 900 places, was to start operating in March 2012, and HM Prison Oakwood (previously known as Featherstone 2) which would provide around 1,600 places, was expected to open in April 2012. The MoJ said that total prison capacity would be around 91,000 by March 2013.53,54

Soon after, in July 2012, the MoJ announced it would be closing HMP Wellingborough, with the loss of 588 prison places. Kenneth Clarke said that, with the opening of new prison accommodation earlier in the year the “opportunity [existed] to further improve the estate by closing uneconomic prison places at HMP Wellingborough”. The MoJ said the

49 Christopher Hope, “Lock Up Fewer Criminals To Save Money, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke Suggests” Daily Telegraph online, 14 June 2010

50 SERCO announced that its consortium had signed a contract (worth about £415m and running for 26½ years) to provide and operate a new prison at Belmarsh West in London. [SERCO Stock Exchange Announcement “Serco signs contract for Belmarsh West prison valued at £415m” 5 July 2010]

51 The status of each prison building or site closed since 2010 was set out in response to a PQ in January 2016 [PQ 19421 of 12 January 2016].

52 MoJ, Prisons competition and capacity announcement, 13 July 2011 53 MoJ, 2500 more prison spaces, 29 March 2012 54 See also MoJ press release, Closure of HMP Wellingborough, 17 July 2012. The

closure of Wellingborough prison was the subject of an adjournment debate in November 2013: HC Deb 18 November 2013 c1052-64

Number 05646, 12 February 2016 20

closure would save around £10 million a year in running costs and £50 million a year in refurbishment costs.55

In September 2012, in a response to a Parliamentary Question, the then Justice Minister, Jeremy Wright, set out, among other things, the changes in prison capacity, population and vacancies between May 2010 and August 2012.56

Prison capacity: statements in January 2013, September 2013 and November 2013 In January 2013, the MoJ outlined its strategy for prison estate capacity, announcing its intention to

• build a 2,000 capacity prison and • expand the capacity of four existing prisons by building four new

“houseblocks”, providing around 1,260 extra places.

The MoJ also said it was planning to

• close six “smaller, older and more expensive” prisons57 and parts of three others,58 reducing capacity by around 2,600 places, and

• convert an existing young offender’s institution into an adult prison.

The MoJ said the changes were part of their “drive to build new capacity to replace older prisons and so bring down the cost of operating the prison system” and that the measures were “expected to save £63 million a year”.

Outlining the MoJ’s strategy, the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice at the time, Chris Grayling, spoke in terms of “best value for money for the taxpayer”:

My intention is to have more adult male prison capacity available than we had in 2010 but at a much lower unit and overall cost. Our strategy for achieving this is to replace accommodation which is old, inefficient or has limited long-term strategic value with cheaper modern capacity which is designed to better meet the demand for prison places and supports our aim to drive down stubbornly high reoffending rates.59

Although it “cautiously” welcomed the closure of six older prisons, the Howard League for Penal Reform said the plans to build a new 2,000 capacity prison were a “titanic waste of money that will do nothing to cut crime”. It argued that the MoJ should continue to focus on reducing prisoner numbers.60

The Prison Reform Trust were also critical of the plans for a new 2,000 capacity prison, commenting that “it would be a gigantic mistake if the Justice Secretary were to revive the discredited idea of Titans and pour taxpayers' money down the prison building drain” and that “small

55 HC Deb 17 July 2012 c131WS 56 HC Deb 11 Sep 2012 c192W 57 Bullwood Hall, Canterbury, Gloucester, Kingston, Shepton Mallet and Shrewsbury 58 Chelmsford, Hull and Isle of Wight 59 HC Deb 10 January c22WS 60 Howard League for Penal Reform, Building Britain’s biggest prison will be a titanic

waste of money, 10 January 2013

21 Building prisons in England and Wales: the bigger, the better?

community prisons tend to be safer and better at reducing reoffending than huge anonymous establishments”.61

Chris Grayling made a further statement in September 2013, in which he again said that the prison estate would have enough places to accommodate those sent by the courts, but costs and reoffending rates must be reduced. He announced the site of the new prison in Wales at Wrexham, the closure of Blundeston, Dorchester, Northallerton and Reading prisons and a review of the future of the prison at Dartmoor and pointed to the expected reduction in costs:

These changes form part of our overall plans that will reduce prison costs by over £500 million within this spending review period.62

A reply to a PQ in November 2013 (in which Jeremy Wright reiterated that the estate had to be modernised) identified those prisons which had increased their operational capacity since September 2013:

Prisons that have increased their operational capacity since 4 September 2013

Prison Operational capacity at 30 August 2013

Total increase in places since 4 September 2013

Operational capacity at 25 October 2013

Date of increase

Bristol 614 25 639 25 October 2013

Bure 523 101 624 Between 27 September 2013 and 25 October 2013

Gartree 707 1 708 6 September 2013

Nottingham 1,060 40 1,100 25 October 2013

Portland 530 90 620 25 October 2013

Rochester 658 4 662 20 September 2013

Swansea 435 10 445 25 October 2013

Source: HC Deb 6 November 2013 cc260-2W

61 Prison Reform Trust, Government plans for prison building and closures, 10 January 2013

62 HC Deb 4 September 2013 c24WS

Number 05646, 12 February 2016 22

5.3 June 2013 new prison announcement On 27 June 2013, the MoJ confirmed that it was planning to build a new prison in North Wales with a capacity of around 2,000 prisoners, which it expected to be fully operational by late 2017.63

Reacting to the announcement, the Howard League for Penal Reform said “the idea that big is beautiful with prisons is wrong. Not our words, but those of David Cameron before he became Prime Minister. This U-turn on pouring cash into a huge unwieldy prison is a titanic waste of money that puts public safety at risk”.64

63 MoJ, New prison creates major boost to Welsh economy, 27 June 2013 64 Howard League for Penal Reform, Prison U-turn is a titanic waste, 27 June 2013

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

Number 05646, 12 February 2016 24

The Prison Reform Trust suggested that Lord Carter’s recommendation for Titans was fixed early in the review, if not actually pre-determined, and the Government had decided to proceed with Titan prisons and then found post hoc reasons for them, varying from the urgent need for prison accommodation and modernisation of the prison system to rehabilitation. The president of the Prison Governors’ Association (PGA) was quoted as saying that the PGA had not been consulted about Titans and, indeed, these had been “the biggest rabbit that came out of the hat on the day the Carter [report] was announced”.70

In giving evidence to the Justice Committee’s enquiry into effective sentencing, Anne Owers, at that time HM chief inspector of prisons, cast doubt on the case for Titan prisons. She agreed that more prison places were needed, but suggested that, on measures of safety, respect, purposeful activity and resettlement, smaller prisons were more effective. This was not, she said, entirely attributable to the age of the large inner-city prisons, which are in many cases of the Victorian radial design (itself derived from Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon design of the late 18th century).

The size of the prison, she suggested, could create a harmful culture:

Victorian radial prisons are not the worst prisons in the world to run or to be in. Some of the prisons knocked up in the 1970s are much more difficult to run and much worse places to be in. It is because of the culture that can develop in those very large institutions and which can affect very much the way they work. That has certainly been the pattern in some of the large, inner-city locals.71

In its report Towards effective sentencing, the Justice Committee noted that Jack Straw had previously said that the Government could not build its way out of a prisons crisis.72

The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), established by the former Conservative party leader Iain Duncan Smith, was similarly critical. In its report Locked Up Potential, the CSJ argued that Titan prisons were more likely than smaller prisons, closer to prisoners’ homes, to be unsafe and to require the use of force to control prisoners. Smaller prisons, on the other hand, were more likely to be effective in rehabilitating prisoners and reducing re-offending.73

Locked Up Potential drew together some of the criticism of Titan prisons from parliamentarians, penal experts and pressure groups:

Clive Martin, Director of voluntary sector umbrella body organisation Clinks, offers this concise critique of the model:

The resettlement issues that will arise out of building Titan jails – including such basic things as location and distance from inmates’ home area, whom the jails hold, and what they seek to achieve –

70 Prison Reform Trust, Titan prisons: A gigantic mistake, August 2008: page 3 71 Anne Owers in Justice Committee, Towards effective sentencing, 22 July 2008, HC

184-ii 2007-08: Q375-77 72 Justice Committee, Towards effective sentencing, 22 July 2008, HC 184 2007-08:

page 15 73 Centre for Social Justice, Press Release: Scrap £1.3 billion Titan prison building

programme and invest in smaller prisons, says new report, 23 March 2009

25 Building prisons in England and Wales: the bigger, the better?

have undergone little or no discussion. They will be built miles from the services that prisoners need to access upon release, and the prisoners in them (like the prisoners in most jails) will have to rely on redundant communication methods that will make services even more difficult to access…It is hard to believe that if we, as a society, really took the National Offender Management System’s aim of rehabilitation seriously we would still build such prisons…

(...)

One only has to look at the latest Inspectorate report to see that smaller prisons are far more desirable and are proven to work better. HMCIP notes:

Evidence shows that small prisons perform better than large ones. This year’s inspections show that large prisons are more likely to be unsafe and to need to rely more on force. More in-depth research … shows that taking into account other variables, size is the most influential predictor of performance against the tests of safety and respect and overall that resettlement is best provided in prisons close to home. These findings should underpin planning for the future of the prison estate. They reinforce concerns about the proposed huge Titan prisons and support the approach taken in the Corston report for smaller custodial settings where needed.

The PRT briefing noted above, Titan Prisons: a gigantic mistake, also cites powerful survey evidence as to the superiority of smaller prisons over larger prisons. Using unpublished Inspectorate data the PRT found that of the 154 prisons surveyed during 2006/07, large institutions were significantly less effective at ‘meeting prisoners needs and creating a healthy prison environment’.

In two-thirds of the factors compared (102 out of 154) smaller prisons scored significantly better than large ones. In 38 of the 102 areas, the disparity exceeded ten percentage points. For 19 of the 24 factors concerning safety, small local prisons scored significantly better. For resettlement, small locals were better for 18 out of 28 compared and were worse for only one.

The report also cited the experience of France, where Europe’s largest prison – Fleury-Merogis – holds 3,600 prisoners. The French government was said to have decided against any more such prisons, in favour of smaller prisons holding 600 to 700 prisoners.74

In an article for Criminal Justice Matters, Andrew Coyle (professor of Prison Studies at King’s College London and a former prison governor) remarked that Lord Carter’s approach had been to focus on making existing practices more efficient, rather than questioning the practices themselves. Yet, he suggested, it had already been acknowledged that the apparently unstoppable rise in the prison population had to be halted at some point.75 Professor Coyle noted that the construction companies who build prisons, perhaps motivated by commercial interest, argued that “big is beautiful” but, if rehabilitation was the aim, then prisoners ought to be held in smaller prisons closer to their homes and sources of support.

74 Centre for Social Justice, Locked Up Potential, March 2009: pages 97-9 75 Andrew Coyle 'Taking Gods' name in vain: Carter mark 3', Criminal Justice Matters,

71: 1, 2008: pages 20-1

Number 05646, 12 February 2016 26

In its report on justice reinvestment - Cutting Crime: The Case for Justice Reinvestment, published after the plans for Titan prisons had been abandoned - the Justice Committee argued that this was the right moment to adopt a fresh approach to the use of imprisonment.76 The Committee had not been convinced of the rationale for Titan prisons, describing Lord Caret’s report as “light on evidence and deeply flawed”. Nor was it greatly in favour of the proposed alternative - five prisons each holding 1,500 prisoners - suggesting that this step still went “a long way in the wrong direction”.77

In its commitment to Titan prisons and then to their 1,500-place successors, the Government was (in the Committee’s view) too focused on short term efficiencies and cost savings and had lost sight of the broader aims of the criminal justice system. The Committee argued:

[P]rison building on this scale will prove a costly mistake. It will preclude movement towards a more effective community prisons model and may limit this and any future government’s willingness and capacity to reinvest in creative measures to reduce the overall prison population in the future.78

6.2 Ministry of Justice consultation and the demise of Titan prisons

A consultation paper, Titan Prisons, was published in June 2008.79 The summary of responses was published by the MoJ in April 2009. With it came the announcement that there would be no Titan prisons. The stated reasons overlapped with the potential difficulties identified by Lord Carter, the Prison Reform Trust and others:

We have (...) come to the conclusion that the additional risk, novelty and complexity involved in building 2,500 place prisons is likely to increase the cost. In addition we believe they are unlikely to provide the correct environment in which to rehabilitate offenders.80

It has, though, been suggested by some commentators that the MoJ’s volte face was in fact attributable to the recession and concerns about the difficulties in obtaining planning consents in the face of what was likely to be strong local opposition.81

In announcing (with some apparent reluctance) the demise of Titan prisons, Jack Straw said that the Government intended instead to build five prisons of up to 1,500 places:82

I did see merit in Lord Carter’s proposals for 2,500-place prisons, especially as they would have been complexes with four or five distinct and separate regimes, but most of those whom we consulted took a different view, and believed that the advantages

76 Justice Committee Cutting Crime: The Case for Justice Reinvestment 1 December 2009, HC 94, 2009-10: page 10

77 Ibid: pages 34-5 78 Ibid: page 36 79 MoJ, Consultation Paper CP10/08 80 MoJ, New Prisons Consultation Response, 27 April 2009, p3 81 Jon Collins ‘Prison expansion: back to the drawing board?’, Criminal Justice Matters,

76: 1, 2009: pages 8-9 82 HMP Wandsworth, for context, has an operational capacity of 1877.

27 Building prisons in England and Wales: the bigger, the better?

were far outweighed by the disadvantages. Not the least of those of that view was Dame Anne Owers, Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons.

Jack Straw then went on to describe the MoJ’s plans for two new prisons (and abandoning of plans for a prison on a site in Warrington) and other work to add to the capacity of the prison system.83

83 HC Deb 27 April 2009, cc569-70

BRIEFING PAPER Number 05646, 12 February 2016

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