Prison capacity provided Andy Burnham with his first crisis as prime minister following an outcry over the potential early release of two of the killers of a policeman.
Ministers believe the early release scheme is necessary because adult men’s prisons are 97 per cent full.
Early release is a sticking plaster while new prison places are built. But deeper questions remain about why so many people are being imprisoned in the UK and, as has long been asked, whether prison really works?
Background
Keir Starmer’s government introduced the early release scheme because Britain’s prisons are nearly full, but Burnham was forced to amend the rules after reports that Jessie Cole and Albert Bowers, sentenced in 2020 to 13 years for the manslaughter of PC Harper, could be released next year.
Ministers responded to the subsequent protest, including criticism from PC Harper’s family and a petition of more than one million signatures, by excluding anyone convicted of unlawful killing from early release, on top of earlier announced restrictions. But the scheme, which comes into force next month, remains in place, intended to ease overcrowding until new prison places can be provided.
Many offenders already leave prison after serving 40-50 per cent of their sentences. They will generally now leave after a third. Those currently scheduled to serve two-thirds of their sentence in prison could be released after half. Prisoners convicted of the most serious crimes, including specified sexual offences, are excluded.
There are approximately 82,508 men and 3,350 women in prison in England and Wales (Scotland and Northern Ireland have devolved systems). This is less than the 2024 total – the highest figure since 1900 – but recent growth suggests there are only 1,500 adult men’s places available this month, down from 3,040 in June, with the pressure expected to continue through the year.
Last year the government said 5,000 new prison places are under construction, adding to 2,900 created since July 2024 and contributing to a target of 14,000 additional places by 2031 through new build and expansion of current facilities.
In what Justice Secretary Alex Norris called a “creative look” at the prison estate, there are also proposals for hundreds of new cells converted from unused office and storage space and laundry rooms. Some transfers of 18 year olds from youth institutions to adult prisons will be delayed and more foreign prisoners – who number about 12 percent of the total, a figure no greater than in 2015 – will be deported.
Norris told the Commons last week Labour inherited a prison system on the brink of failure. “We would like to have gone further, but due to the lack of investment in the previous government’s 14 years, we are unable to do so,” he said.
But staff shortages are already leading to unused cells in prisons such as the privately-run HMP Millsike, opened last year. Mark Fairhurst, chair of the Prison Officers Association, said creating additional space would be ineffective without more staff. “Nobody wants to be a prison officer anymore.”
Why are prisons so full?
The recent crisis has been blamed on longer average sentences, a backlog of cases in the courts since the Covid pandemic, and a record high in prisoner recalls. But underlying the specific circumstances is the fact that England and Wales imprison so many more people per head of population than other western European countries, making them an “outlier”, according to the Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research. The Netherlands imprisons less than half the England and Wales figure.
Despite the tabloid belief that criminals often get away with short sentences, the average length rose from 18 months in 2013 to almost 23 months in 2024 – a period when crime actually fell. This sentence inflation does not include the rising number of people on indeterminate sentences, which has risen from 9 per cent of the total prison population in 1993 to 16 per cent in 2024.
In a paper published by the Howard League for Penal Reform, five former senior judges argued that sentence lengths had approximately doubled in the half-century that they had been involved in the law, and so had the prison population. They attributed this to legislative changes that increased maximum sentences for some crimes and introduced mandatory minimum sentences for others. Few politicians dare risk being seen as soft on crime.
“Successive governments have failed to grasp the nettle of sentence inflation over many years and the end result is a prison system unable to deliver what it is designed for,” said Howard League chief executive Andrea Coomber KC.
In these circumstances, campaigners warn that building prison capacity is treating the symptom rather than the cause of the crisis.
“Without more concerted action to reduce unnecessary imprisonment, improve community alternatives and tackle the drivers of reoffending, new prison places will simply fill up as quickly as they are built,” said Pia Sinha, chief executive of the Prison Reform Trust.
“We are now witnessing the consequences of decades of penal expansion. Prisons are overcrowded, staff are stretched, access to education, healthcare and rehabilitative support is often severely limited, and too many people leave prison no better equipped to live crime-free lives than when they entered.”
Prison isn’t working
In 1993 Michael Howard, then hard-line Conservative home secretary, famously said “prison works”, shifting policy from rehabilitation to sentencing and setting the prison population on its rising trajectory. But more than 30 years later, Howard’s assertion remains questioned by many, including, in 2023, his former boss Sir John Major, who admitted: “We over-use prison and under value alternative sentences.”
A key measure of whether prison works is recidivism. According to a report last year by the Justice Committee 80 per cent of all offending in England and Wales is reoffending, with “growing concerns about persistently high” rates. It said overcrowding, staffing shortages and deteriorating infrastructure are having a “profound impact on the ability of prisons to deliver rehabilitation”.
The Sentencing Council, former prison governor and inspector John Podmore and the Independent Monitoring Boards are among many warning that prison isn’t working.
What people are saying
“Without intervention, we risked running out of prison places, leaving courts unable to sentence offenders and police unable to make arrests.” - Alex Norris, Justice Secretary
“I am very clear in my belief that prison works and that we need to use prison far more than we do.” - Nick Timothy, Shadow Justice Secretary
“For those convicted we need alternatives to incarceration especially for women, young people and offenders whose crimes are linked to poverty or destitution, and a greater use of community-based penalties.” - Green Party peer Jenny Jones
What happens next
As well as increasing prison capacity and the early release scheme, Norris intends to end indeterminate imprisonment for public protection sentences – following a review – and reduce the number of women in prison and the number of children in custody.
“Lasting public safety will come from a balanced approach that reserves custody for those who genuinely need to be there, while investing in the services that prevent crime, reduce reoffending and help people rebuild their lives,” said Sinha. ■
About the author: Kevin Gopal is a Manchester-based journalist who has returned to freelancing after editing Big Issue North from 2007 until its closure in 2023. He writes regularly for The Lead to untangle the issues facing the UK and also reporting on social justice and other issues across the North of England as part of our award-winning The Lead Local titles.
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Our Burnham’s Britain series continues this weekend, as we look at the challenges faced on welfare and benefits. We will also return to prisons, when we report on what alternatives to prison there are and whether these could be the key to solving the crisis in prisons capacity. Make sure you’re subscribed to receive the next installment of Burnham’s Britain first to your inbox.
