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MPs criticise govt's policy on prisons

22/07/2008

An influence group of MPs have today claimed that the current "crisis" of prison overcrowding is due to serious failures of sentencing policy and its implementation by the government.

A report by the Commons justice committee published today claims "failures in anticipating resource needs and providing appropriate resources for the implementation of policies stood in the way of results".

The committee also states that the government's policy of involving massive public investment in the building of more prisons is a "risky strategy" that "will not solve the fundamental and long-term issues".

MPs went on to criticise Lord Carter's review of prison, describing it as "deeply unimpressive".

The plans for new titan prison are also not based on evidence and represent a "missed opportunity", the report declares.

The number of vulnerable and young people put in prison also comes under criticism with the committee claiming short sentences for repeat offenders achieve little and may in fact add to the problem.

Alun Michael, of the justice committee, said: "Sentencing policy is failing both victims of crime and criminals. Our overcrowded prisons are doing little to reduce crime and in the case of short prison sentences they may be actually contributing to re-offending. Sentencers are not using community sentences to the full.

"It seems that government has not learnt vital lessons from past experience, and the Carter Review was a missed opportunity to rethink sentencing provision. The government itself has said we cannot build our way out of the prisons crisis, yet we now have this focus on building more, bigger prisons when the evidence is showing us that prison isn't effective in cutting crime.

"We are very concerned that such a major review, which should have been a chance to fundamentally consider the problems with sentencing and provision for sentencing in England and Wales, was based on wholly inadequate consultation and a highly selective evidence base."

Juliet Lyon, director of Prison Reform Trust, added: "This blistering report must make ministers review their failing prisons policy before they disappear down the bottomless public spending pit of titan jails.

"What this committee of MPs from all parties found was that the prisons crisis is a direct result of the government failing to follow its twin track strategy of reserving prison for serious and violent offenders and using community orders for minor offenders.

"Instead, our prisons are full to bursting with thousands of people serving ineffective, system-clogging short prison sentences for minor crimes simply because the Ministry of Justice did not prioritise spending on non-custodial sentences despite their proving to be more effective at cutting crime."

She added that "the way out of this hole is not to carrying on digging by building huge super-sized titan prisons in a futile attempt to catch up with rising prison numbers".

"The prisons crisis is a crisis of the Government's own making and, despite crime figures falling, is doing untold damage to public confidence in the criminal justice system as people wrongly fear that overcrowding means people who should be locked up are getting let off."

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Justice, meanwhile, said that there was no official response to the report when asked.

A separate report by HM Inspectorate of Prisons published today claimed that some prisoners in Doncaster jail were sleeping in toilet areas due to overcrowding.

The prison currently has 200 more prisoners than it could accommodate, the report claims, and two-man cells have been turned into three-man cells by adding an extra bed in the toilet area.