Justice Secretary Urges Local Residents to Embrace New Prison Amid Jail Crisis
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood insists that communities must accept new prisons to address the escalating jail crisis in England and Wales.
Prison, Shabana Mahmood, England, Wales, Overcrowding, Justice
Birmingham: So, here’s the scoop. Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood is telling folks they need to get on board with a new prison being built nearby. Why? Because the jail situation is getting pretty dire.
She mentioned that instead of just locking people up, they might start using home curfews more often. It’s all about keeping the numbers down in prisons.
And get this: fewer cases are going to crown court because there’s such a backlog. It’s like a traffic jam in the justice system.
Mahmood pointed fingers at planning delays for new prisons, which have caused some serious issues. Earlier this year, they had to let thousands of prisoners out early just to manage the overcrowding.
She said on LBC Radio that it’s unacceptable to have these delays when the prison crisis is growing. Everyone might have their own local planning issues, but she believes we can all agree that prisons are super important.
They were just days away from running out of space in prisons, and that’s a scary thought. So, she’s saying people might have to deal with a new prison popping up close to them.
The government plans to build four new prisons over the next seven years to tackle this overcrowding mess. But they also need to rethink sentencing to really get a handle on the rising inmate numbers.
By 2031, the Ministry of Justice wants to find 14,000 new cell spaces. They’re putting £2.3 billion into this over the next two years.
Out of those, 6,400 will be in the new prisons, while the rest will come from expanding existing jails or fixing up old cells. They’re also throwing in an extra £500 million for maintenance.
Prisons are now considered “nationally important,” which should help speed up planning approvals. They’re aiming to get new developments approved in just 16 weeks.
This news comes after estimates showed that by 2029, over 100,000 prisoners could be in jails across England and Wales. That’s a lot of people!
There are concerns that the government’s plans might not be enough, and taxpayers could end up footing a much bigger bill than expected.
Since September, they’ve been releasing inmates early to ease the overcrowding, but prisons are still expected to hit critical capacity again by next July.
As of Monday, there were 86,089 adult prisoners in England and Wales, with only 2,733 spaces left. It’s tight!
Andrea Coomber from the Howard League for Penal Reform thinks the money for new jails would be better spent on improving probation services to help cut down on crime in communities.