There is no denying that the prison system has been failed; the very fact that prisoners have had to be let out early in such a dire situation is a sorry state of affairs. Adequate amounts of prison spaces is an absolute fundamental for any society, let alone a country such as the United Kingdom which needs to perform on the world stage. New prisons being commissioned should have been at the top of the last government’s agenda; it was instead subject to major bureaucracy in the planning. A report by the Institute for Government declares that the prisons are in crisis, and even with the current 4,400 planned new spaces in prisons, it is not enough to house the estimated 12,000 new convicts.
The reason that this issue came about can be largely pinned on timing. The time spent trying to figure out the logistics of newly built prisons, along with allocating adequate funding for them, meant that we ticked ever closer to crisis with nothing being done about it. This is why Labour need to commission new prisons as a matter of urgency. Of course, saying “just get on with it” would be a major oversight in itself, considering that opening prisons which have been rushed in the planning process would create dangerous conditions for both inmates and staff, leaving future governments to deal with the consequences. It is this short-sighted logic, however, which has put the criminal justice system in the crisis which it is in of present.
Relative to other countries in Europe, the United Kingdom has always found itself subject to expensive and prolonged planning processes when looking to build new infrastructure under the public sector, such as we could see with HS2. The building of new prisons not only faces these challenges, but an immense sense of nimbyism from councils and politicians. This demonstrates how a lot of the barricades which got the prison system in the state it is now were not logistical barricades, but political ones. If the Prime Minister is not concerned about taking the difficult choices to get the country back on track as he so claims, then these political barriers should not be an issue.
It is astounding that the former Director of Public Prosecutions, who reminded us of his work experience in every other debate in the general election, has not put more of an emphasis on fixing the criminal justice system. Labour do have plans to reform the planning system entirely when it comes to building more prisons, which must be seen as a positive. There is an immense sense of irony in this, however, in the case that the reforms to the planning process are subject to the same prolonged bureaucracy. The prison system is in such a dire state that this must not be the case, and the government must refrain from involving long undue processes in a situation where time is paramount.
At the start of the month there were reports that the current plans to boost prison cell numbers could cost £4bn extra than 2021 estimates and which will still be short of enough spaces, according to the National Audit Office (NAO). This should incite uncertainty as to what Labour will actually do with the plans when it comes down to it. The Labour Party’s position on the last government’s Rwanda scheme was to show no support on the basis that it was a costly policy which they believed would not actually work in practice. If we apply the same logic here, you will presume they will scrap the scheme and start from square one – however I doubt we can apply consistency within policymaking when the Labour Party is concerned.
If we were to see a lot more campaigning from Labour backbenchers on this issue, as well as pressure from the opposition benches, the government may start to put this crisis at the forefront of its agenda. The only progress the government has made so far has been fairly backwards, with releasing convicts early, so it is in the government’s best interests to resolve the problems with the criminal justice system, even from a political perspective, which further creates the case that Labour should make this one of their main missions and something which should have been in the Prime Minister’s recent relaunch. If the government get to the latter stages of this Parliament still having to release convicts early, their newly found supermajority could be short lived.
