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Government must cancel unnecessary prison building (28 August 2009)

Commenting on the latest prison population projections, published today by the Ministry of Justice, Jon Collins, Campaign Director for the Criminal Justice Alliance, said:

'The Government has repeatedly pledged to increase prison capacity to 96,000 by 2014. However, the figures released today show that no more that 92,400 places will be needed by 2014, and it could be as few as 83,500.

'Since 1997 the Government has comprehensively failed to get a grip on prison policy, resulting in early release, prison overcrowding and high rates of reoffending. Yet that is no excuse to waste more public money on building new prisons, when their own research shows that they will not be needed.

'Instead of wasting billions of pounds on building new prison places, the Government needs to seize the opportunity presented by these projections to cancel unnecessary prison building projects and instead focus on reducing the overuse of prison.'