How to solve England's prison crisis

In the final days of the last administration, politicians met to discuss plans to solve prison overcrowding. One solution presented itself: a derelict ship off Rikers Island in New York.

The 180-meter-long, five-story-tall Vernon C. Bain Center was reminiscent of the Bibby Stockholm project used by the Home Office to house asylum seekers. But the idea of ​​taking the rusty blue ship, already slated for decommissioning, across the Atlantic was not taken to sea due to concerns about the site's safety, two government officials said.

Instead, they decided to release some prisoners several weeks earlier than planned because prisons in England and Wales were close to being overwhelmed.

“It's a sign of their real desperation, they were running out of options,” said Nick Hardwick, former chief inspector of prisons and former chairman of the Parole Board for England and Wales. “They considered absolutely everything before deciding on early release.”

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer inherits a crumbling prison system – which is now worsening after more than 1,000 people were arrested this month following outbreaks of far-right violence. The government is therefore faced with a dilemma: either it must curb the UK's increasingly long prison sentences or create more places in prisons.

“The system we are in now does not serve the victims,” ​​Hardwick added. “Rhetoric has not worked.”

Hardwick is among a chorus of former officials who argue that releasing prisoners early is a tacit admission that prison sentences have reached unsustainable levels and that a more pragmatic approach is needed in punishing offenders.

England and Wales already have the highest incarceration rate in Western Europe: according to the Prison Reform Trust, there are around 141 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants. By comparison, in France the figure is 106 and in Germany 67.

The number of prisoners is expected to rise from around 87,400 at the end of July 2024 to 114,800 by March 2028. Prison capacity in England and Wales is already exhausted by the practice of putting two prisoners in the same cell and stands at 88,800.

The average length of imprisonment has increased from 13.7 months in 2010 to 20.9 months in 2023, according to the Ministry of Justice. The “sentencing inflation” is due to policy changes that have led to increases in minimum and maximum sentences for a range of crimes.

“We are blocking more [people] and we lock them up for longer,” Lord Ian Burnett, former head of justice in England and Wales, told the House of Lords last month. “That would only be a good thing if it were supported by evidence of general benefit. But that is not the case.”

The new government has the chance to take a radical approach, he said.

In the past, ministers have outlined plans to extend prison terms for violent and sexual crimes in response to a series of high-profile cases that have heightened public concern and led to calls for tougher sentences.

The decision to increase prison sentences for “minor” offences such as assault and theft has bloated the system and contributed to capacity falling below what is considered safe.

In addition, it has contributed to a bottleneck in the court system, delaying sentencing and causing less serious crimes to be overlooked due to capacity constraints.

Hardwick said it was questionable whether sending people who commit less serious crimes to prison for a few more months would act as a deterrent. “It's not going to change behavior,” he said.

The previous government had attempted to push through a sentencing law that would eliminate short prison sentences of less than 12 months and instead advocated the release of prisoners into society on probation and under supervision.

The plans were thwarted by Tory MPs, with Justice Minister Shabana Mahmood arguing at the time that the probation service needed more resources to cope with demand. The proposals could be re-tabled and refined under the new government following a review of sentencing and parole.

The Ministry of Justice said: “We will be presenting a 10-year strategy for prison care later this year. We will also be focusing more on reducing recidivism by connecting prison governors with local employers to break the cycle of crime.”

Mark Day, deputy director of the charity Prison Reform Trust, said the new government must address the issue of sentencing increases. Ahead of recent far-right riots, in which some rioters were sentenced to three years in prison, he warned it would be “foolish of the government” to introduce measures to increase sentencing.

Ministers are using early release as a pressure valve in the system. In October last year, the plan to release prisoners 18 days before their scheduled release was introduced. Since then, the time limit has been increased, first to 35 days and later to 70 days.

The decision to release prisoners after serving 40 percent of their sentence starting in September was met with displeasure by victim support organizations, but according to her predecessor Alex Chalk, it gives Mahmood around 18 months of breathing room to get the crisis under control.

Mahmood has promised to take control of the planning process and classify prisons as “nationally important” to provide thousands of new prison places, while also launching a review of sentencing and parole to develop a strategy to deal with the pressures.

Alessio Scandurra, a researcher at the European Prison Observatory, said accepting political backlash to implement reforms could be worth it in the long run. He said some European partners had had success in redefining certain crimes, such as drug-related offences.

“Even if a new government loses some of the public support because it addresses the prison issue, perhaps no one will care at the next election because time will have passed,” he said.

Starmer appointed businessman James Timpson as prison minister on his first day in office. Timpson, heir to the shoe repair business of the same name, is a former chairman of the Prison Reform Trust and has said that around a third of current prisoners – many of them women – are incarcerated unnecessarily.

Hardwick said Timpson's appointment was encouraging and signalled that Starmer was open to reform.

“The tone of the new government is encouraging, but it must also deliver.”