Wednesday 22 March 2017

The Future Is Titan After All

This by Alan Travis in the Guardian:- 

Four 'supersized' prisons to be built in England and Wales

Justice secretary announces plan to create 5,000 prison places in east Yorkshire, Wigan, Rochester and Port Talbot

The justice secretary is to announce plans to build four new “supersized” jails in England and Wales, creating a total of 5,000 modern prison places. Sites at Full Sutton in east Yorkshire, Hindley in Wigan, Rochester in Kent and Port Talbot in south Wales have been earmarked for development as part of the government’s £1.3bn programme to transform the prison estate.

Although the individual capacities of the new jails will not be decided until they go through the planning process it is expected each will have a capacity of more than 1,000 inmates, consolidating a new generation of “supersized” prisons.

The justice secretary, Liz Truss, said: “We cannot hope to reduce reoffending until we build prisons that are places of reform where hard work and self-improvement flourish. “Outdated prisons, with dark corridors and cramped conditions, will not help offenders turn their back on crime – nor do they provide our professional and dedicated prison officers with the right tools or environment to do their job effectively.”

But the plans dismayed penal reformers who said the new building programme was not being matched by a plan to reduce the use of prison in the first place. The prison population has stabilised at about 85,000 over the last five years in a system with an “operational capacity” of just a thousand more.

Peter Dawson, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said the “massive investment in new prisons is not matched by a credible plan to reduce our reckless overuse of prison in the first place”. He added: “The prison estate certainly needs an overhaul, but reducing demand would mean closing prisons, not opening them. The government has admitted that it has no idea when overcrowding will cease, and this announcement takes us no closer to an answer to that crucial question.”

The four new prisons are part of a wider building programme to create up to 10,000 modern prison places by 2020. A total of nine new prisons are to be built, five by the next general election. Sites in Yorkshire, Wigan, Kent and South Wales have been earmarked as part of a commitment to build up to 10,000 prison places by 2020

HMP Berwyn near Wrexham, which opened last month, is expected to become one of the largest prisons in Europe, holding more than 2,100 inmates when it is full to capacity. Most of the prisons built over the last 30 years had an original capacity of about 600, so Wednesday’s announcement marks a change of scale in British penal architecture.

Announcements are also expected later this year on the closure of old Victorian inner-city jails as part of the government’s “new for old” policies. HMP Holloway women’s prison, which shut last summer, is the latest to close under the “new for old” policy.

The expansion in the size of prisons has happened on a piecemeal basis, with Wandsworth prison in south London, for example, now holding 1,560 inmates in a jail supposed to hold fewer than 1,000. Nearly 30 prisons now hold more than 1,000 inmates each.

Ministry of Justice officials say the final decisions on the new prisons will be subject to planning approvals as well as considerations of value for money and affordability. It will be open to the public prison service to bid to run the new prisons alongside private prison operators. They also stressed that the new jails would create 2,000 jobs in the construction and manufacturing industries and provide a boost to regional economies across the country.

Truss said: “This significant building programme will not only help create a modern prison estate where wholescale reform can truly take root, but will also provide a thriving, economic lifeline for the local community – creating hundreds of jobs for local people and maximising opportunities for businesses.”

Council of Europe figures showed last week that England and Wales has the highest incarceration rate in western Europe. Although the prison population is within “operational capacity” it is far above its “certified normal accommodation” – the official measure of “good, decent” accommodation. Nearly 21,000 prisoners – a quarter of the prison population – are held “doubled up” in cells designed for one.

The shadow justice secretary, Richard Burgon, said: “We need modern prisons fit for the modern age. But simply replacing one prison with another prison doesn’t deal with the overcrowding crisis. No amount of press releases can distract from that.”

Lord Woolf in his landmark 1990 report following the Strangeways prison riots recommended that prisons should not normally hold more than 400 prisoners. He said: “The evidence suggests that if these figures are exceeded, there can be a marked fall-off in all aspects of the performance of a prison.” The last Labour government proposed a series of 2,500-place Titan prisons but dropped the scheme in the face of cross-party opposition.

21 comments:

  1. "The universality of Titian’s genius is not questioned today, for he was surpassingly great in all .. "

    Oops, should have gone to...

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  2. More money for private probation firms? Pay rises for prison staff? Millions spent on recruitment of new prison officers? New computer systems to make courts digital and paperless? Not to mention £20,000 a year pay rises for judges? Now new titan prisons too!
    Liz Truss has certainly come into some money me thinks!
    Wonder how other government departments are feeling.

    'Getafix

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  3. Will they be state operated or put out to private tender?
    Perhaps the promise of a contract to run these super gaols will keep the likes of Working Links, Interserve and MTCNova from walking away from probation contracts?
    Nod and a wink, funny handskake and all that.

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  4. Breaking news at KSS today. Big changes

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    Replies
    1. Well share a bit then.

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    2. Eat this!!

      "Community Payback project reaches semi-finals of NOMS award

      14 March 2017
      KSS CRC’s Community Payback team is in the running to win a prestigious award after successfully turning the grounds of the Colman Redland Centre into a haven for wildlife."

      Consider it SHARED!

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    3. "Community Payback project reaches semi-finals of NOMS award"

      What's the competition like?
      Will it be Working Links or Interserve in the final?

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    4. It might just be KSS in the semi's... wonder if they can make the Final? Go Team KSS!!!

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  5. Hansard:

    "Chris Grayling: We are not planning to build a Titan prison. We have a very good model for prison development in Oakwood, which opened recently in the west midlands. That site has multiple blocks and first-class training facilities. To my mind, it is an excellent model for the future of the Prison Service. We are looking at a number of sites and hope to reach a decision in the next few months on the best option. I would like to open a new generation prison as quickly as possible, because it will save the taxpayer money and the facilities will be better.

    5 Feb 2013 : Column 115"

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    1. And from 2008

      http://www.cjp.org.uk/news/archive/titan-prisons-a-gigantic-mistake-28-08-2008/

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    2. And from a House of Commons briefing paper Feb 2016:

      "A consultation paper, Titan Prisons, was published in June 2008. The summary of responses was published by the MoJ in April 2009. With it came the announcement that there would be no Titan prisons. The stated reasons overlapped with the potential difficulties identified by Lord Carter, the Prison Reform Trust and others:
      We have (...) come to the conclusion that the additional risk, novelty and complexity involved in building 2,500 place prisons is likely to increase the cost. In addition we believe they are unlikely to provide the correct environment in which to rehabilitate offenders.
      It has, though, been suggested by some commentators that the MoJ’s volte face was in fact attributable to the recession and concerns about the difficulties in obtaining planning consents in the face of what was likely to be strong local opposition.
      In announcing (with some apparent reluctance) the demise of Titan prisons, Jack Straw said that the Government intended instead to build five prisons of up to 1,500 places"

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    3. I quite like the idea of novelty prisons, niche boutique prisons or even (nod to 08:44) Titian prisons. Now they would "provide the correct environment in which to rehabilitate offenders."

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  6. Does building more prisons mean reducing reoffending is failing?

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/22/nothing-contradictory-reducing-re-offending-whilst-building/

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    Replies
    1. Nah, just means first-time offending is on a steep rise.

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    2. More like net widening. Criminalising more people for minor crimes.

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  7. Off topic but with what occurred in London today I am concerned that we keep getting prevent training which is largely pointless. Especially when such attacks appear to be care in the community and not organised terrorist attacks. I work in a CRC and have 5 cases that could fit this profile. Good to see Harry Fletcher being interviewed on BBC News.

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  8. The prevent training in Interserve CRC has been run by PO's that have been handed a script and given a " bit of training ( I say that loosely ) - which is yet again an absolutely pointless excersise - could understand if it was run by counter terrorism staff or staff from agencies that are better equipped ( training on the cheap and tick box excersise ) to answer queries / questions.
    Yvonne Thomas announced ( well she had someone else send the email out )today to staff that lies had been printed about her comments reported via The Guardian with regards Interserve pulling out of their contract !!!???? which probably means it'll just get taken under the wing of Devolution justice !

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    1. Didn't she say it in front of the Commons Select Committee, thus making it a matter of public record?

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    2. Its all CRC-speak, where a 30% reduction in those being supervised by probation means an "increased workload" and threats to walk away from the contract - repeated by Gansheimer - are NOT threats to walk away, but only IF MoJ raid the public purse & hand out more goodies to the global bullies.

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  9. 07:41 Yvonne Thomas and the rest of them couldn't lie straight in bed !!!

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  10. Off topic, but a very serious rebuke for Liz Truss here, and a demonstration really of the lack of understanding to be found at the MoJ.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/22/liz-trusss-announcement-rape-victims-could-give-evidence-video/

    'Getafix

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