The Justice Secretary’s announcement this week that prisons are 99% full and will run out of space entirely by November should serve as a wake-up call. Shabana Mahmood’s proposed solutions; 28-day recall limits and £4.7 billion for three new prisons reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of the crisis we face.
The government admits that even with this massive spending spree, England and Wales will still be 9,000 prison places short by 2028. This isn’t a capacity problem we can build our way out of, it is a systemic failure that demands a radical rethink.
The Recall Crisis
Prison recalls have more than doubled in seven years, yet the government’s response is simply to limit them to 28 days. This treats the symptom while not addressing the question. Why are so many prisoners breaching their license conditions? It is often due to lack adequate housing, mental health support and employment opportunities on release.
Breaking the Cycle
The current approach traps us in an endless cycle of crisis management. Emergency releases followed by emergency measures followed by emergency spending. is financially unsustainable and is an abdication of our duty to ensure fewer victims of crime and create safer communities.
We need politicians brave enough to champion evidence over rhetoric, rehabilitation over retribution. Instead we are seeing a system in perpetual crisis that fails victims, offenders, and society alike.
The choice is clear. We can keep building more prisons, or we can start building a justice system that actually works.
0 responses to “The Prison Crisis: Why Building More Jails Won’t Fix Our Broken System”