International Law

Super-jails are waste of £1bn, say governors

By John Hirst

Prison officers, governors and penal reform groups will today condemn plans to build up to three 2,500-space jails as a waste of more than £1 billion of taxpayers? money, while in a separate warning, prison governors say that there is a danger of staff losing control of the so-called ?Titan? jails.

The criticism comes as a Ministry of Justice consultation paper on the prisons closes. Opponents said that all the evidence, including reports by the Chief Inspector of Prisons, points to small prisons working best and that three such huge jails threaten to destabilise the criminal justice system.

A letter sent to Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, says that spending £1 billion on the jails is not a solution to the projected rise in the prison population from 83,600 now to almost 100,000 by 2014.

The jails form the centrepiece of a building programme that will produce 10,500 extra prison spaces by 2014 at a cost of £2.3 billion.

Full post as published by prisonlawinsideout on August 30, 2008 (boomark / email).