Just visiting jail
- 20 Mar 08, 06:53 PM
"It's like a holiday camp". So said one "old lag" (though just 25 he'd already spent 10 years inside) to the justice secretary on a visit to Highdown prison in Surrey. Jack Straw was showing me round a new block at Highdown prison. It's one part of a prison building programme which he hopes will avert a prison crisis.
Houseblock 5 at Highdown is much much nicer than the rest of the prison. If you're in "5" you get a cell to yourself with a TV (prisoners have had TVs since a decision taken by Mr Mr Straw a decade ago when he was home secretary) and there's even a socket for a PC - although, the justice secretary is quick to say he won't sanction that luxury.
Elsewhere in the prison life is far from being like a holiday camp - three men have to share small cells built for two. All parties agree that prison overcrowding means that prisoners cannot do the courses and do not have the space to prepare for a successful return to the real world.
The new cells are part of what's meant to be a solution to the prisons crisis. Figures out today show that the number of spare prison places in England and Wales amounts to just one half of one per cent of the total - that's 470 out of more than 82,000. If it weren't for the use of police cells and the controversial policy of early release the prison system would already be in meltdown.
The problem is that as quickly as ministers build new prison places, the courts have been filling them. The block I visited and one next to it which opens soon cost £60 million to build. Each could be filled in just a week by the extra prisoners coming from the courts. As a result Mr Straw says that he cannot rule out extending the early release scheme in the future. He told me that:
"Nobody in my position can rule out emergency measures but, by God, I'm working very, very hard to avoid that because this is all about maintaining the confidence of the public."
And, though wary of telling the courts what to do, he has this piece of advice for them: "Short sentences are a matter for the courts to decide and it has to be for them. What I am saying, however, is just think about whether community punishments in appropriate circumstances, which can be very tough, and on average can work better than short sentences, should not be used."
The justice scretary was speaking to me ahead of a major speech on penal policy which he will deliver next Wednesday.
