The crisis in English and Welsh prisons is, reportedly, so acute that judges have been told to hold off jailing anyone else for the moment. The total number of prisoners last week reached an all-time high of 88,225, as reports on the malign effects of overcrowding, staff shortages, violence and self-harm continue to pile up. To relieve the pressure, the justice secretary, Alex Chalk, will allow more people to leave prison early and not send people to prison if their sentence is less than 12 months. Instead, Mr Chalk told MPs such “offenders will be punished in the community”. All this, however, seems to shift the problem from jails to the probation service, which is in an equally dire situation.
Probation was briefly a cause célèbre in 2021 when the partial privatisation overseen by Chris Grayling, in his disastrous tenure as justice secretary, was reversed. But while opponents of outsourcing were proved right when contractors failed to live up to expectations, the hoped-for improvement when the work was brought back in-house has not materialised. Last month’s annual report by the chief inspector, Justin Russell, was the last of his four-year term. In measured language, and while making an effort to highlight good practice, it delivered the grim message that the service has “if anything got worse”.
