In British politics, only certain things matter. Over the past decade, the Conservatives have overseen chaos in the justice system – from the disastrous privatisation of the probation services, to court backlogs of up to six years and the decimation of legal aid – with barely any pushback from the media or voters. Politicians afraid of being seen as “soft on crime” have little motivation to create fair conditions for offenders, even if it means sacrificing victims too.
Few issues make that case clearer than the state of our prisons. On Thursday, the government’s bid to deal with soaring overcrowding will see some prisoners across 84 jails in England and Wales become eligible for early release – up to 70 days prior to the end of their sentence.
Rishi Sunak, now facing a gruelling election campaign, has pledged that “no one” would be put on the scheme – which last October began for inmates 18 days away from their release date – “if they were deemed a threat to public safety”. Most of those eligible for the scheme will be serving 12 months or less.
But high-risk offenders – including those who are a danger to children – have already been released, while ministers’ failure to notify survivors of domestic abuse means many won’t know their abusers are free. Perpetrators of domestic violence and stalking are likely to be among those released early because they frequently receive short sentences from a justice system that sees them as less serious. It is not a coincidence that these crimes primarily affect women.
Ministers are right that things cannot go on as they are. The prison population has ballooned by 93% over the past 30 years as a result of tougher sentences and, more recently, court backlogs. The system is now running at 110% capacity – conditions that have already contributed to prisoners dying as well as rising rates of self-harm – and is estimated to increase by a further 30% by 2028. To put that in context, the UK already has the third largest prison population in countries covered by the Council of Europe after Russia and Turkey.
And yet poorly planned quick fixes such as “get out of jail free” cards are simply tinkering at the edges. Or as Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, puts it: “more fundamentally, an urgent conversation is needed about who we send to prison, for how long, and what we want to happen during their time inside”.
It is telling that, in addition to the early release scheme, ministers plan to tackle overcrowding with measures including creating 20,000 new prison places and inmates “doubling up in cells” where it’s deemed safe to do so. It sums up bleakly where decades of “tough on crime” hysteria has led us: the government would prefer to pen prisoners in like animals rather than ask why so many of its citizens are incarcerated in the first place.
That might have something to do with who those citizens typically are. Incarceration is disproportionately inflicted on people who grew up in poverty, as well as those with mental health conditions and from an ethnic minority background; the Prison Reform Trust says that the overrepresentation of black, Asian and minority ethnic people jailed in this country is estimated to fill a dozen extra prisons.
Those who wish to reduce prison numbers are often accused of wanting to let dangerous criminals off the hook. But the irony of the “tough on crime” agenda is that it is the epitome of hollow rhetoric: poor and black people are needlessly locked up, while offenders who genuinely pose a threat to the public routinely evade justice. Just ask the 99% of accused rapists who never see the inside of a courtroom.
What we need is radical reform of the prison system: fewer people behind bars and more resources spent on reducing rather than simply punishing crime. In many cases, there is no societal benefit to imprisoning non-violent offenders. On the contrary, evidence shows that community sentences are more effective at reducing reoffending than short prison sentences, yet their use has halved in the past decade.
This is particularly clear-cut for women, most of whom are jailed for non-violent offences and are victims of much more severe crime – often male violence – themselves.
Incarcerating them is not only cruel, it is counterproductive. Research shows that separating children from their mothers – often for a minor crime and short sentence – puts them at risk of school exclusion, suicide attempts and exploitation. If we need an insight into the brutality of the current system, think of the 18-year-old care-leaver who last year was left to give birth alone in her cell for 12 hours. She had to bite through the umbilical cord with her own teeth to cut it. Her baby died the next day.
As a former public prosecutor, Keir Starmer – likely to be prime minister in six weeks – is in a better position than most to advocate a humane and evidence-based alternative without being vulnerable to attacks from the right. Labour’s ambition to halve violence against women and girls is a good start but it is grim that its solution to prison overcrowding is to … build more prisons. This kind of performative authoritarianism was on display again when Starmer’s recent six pledges included – not social care or housing – but cracking down on antisocial behaviour. Why help deprived teenagers when you can give them an asbo?
Westminster is built on short-term thinking, where public policy routinely does little more than put out fires, even if it is ministers who have set them. But offenders and victims alike deserve a transformed prison system: an early release scheme that excludes domestic abusers and stalkers; an end to the incarceration of pregnant women; a move towards a policy where the majority of non-violent offenders receive community-based justice; a resentencing programme for all remaining imprisonment for public protection (IPP) prisoners; and more resources for and focus on rehabilitation. Staggeringly, a report by the National Audit Office in 2023 found not a single prison to be “good” for rehabilitation and release planning.
Long term, we must address the root causes that lead to so much crime: namely poverty, lack of education and poor mental health. If this sounds expensive, consider that last year alone, prisons cost the public purse more than £4bn.
Faced with a crisis riddled with ignorance and showboating, it is useful to stop every now and again and state the reality. Prisons are not a solution to social problems. Saying you are “tough on crime” is not the same as getting justice for victims. Those who commit offences are still human beings. Blindly going on as we are may be the easy path but that does not mean it is the right one. As it stands, we are hiding our failure behind a cell door.
Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist
