International Law

A titanic mistake

By John Hirst

Titan prisons will tip the balance even further towards punishment, making rehabilitation even more difficult to achieve

"Titan prisons, as proposed last year by Lord Carter in his report Securing the Future, will no doubt prove to be a great success in accommodating large wedges of the ever-expanding prisoner population.

But as far as reducing re-offending is concerned and making towns and cities safer places to live, the plans are doomed to failure. If the building of the first three giant prison complexes holding at least 2,500 prisoners each goes ahead ? and all the signals from the government so far indicate that they will ? the prison landscape in this country will be changed forever. The uneasy balance between punishment and rehabilitation will tip so far in favour of the former that the idea of prison being a place where lives can be changed for the better and where redemption and restoration is still possible, will be in serious danger of being reduced to an unattainable ideal...".

Full post as published by prisonlawinsideout on September 09, 2008 (boomark / email).