Andy Burnham’s “pausing” of the Starmer government’s prisoner release scheme and the resignation of its architect, James Timpson, are disasters. They indicate a Downing Street that puts populism ahead of policy. England and Wales’s prisons are a total disgrace. Timpson was the first justice minister in 15 years prepared to handle them. Now he has gone. Although he said it had been an “honour” to serve in the government, it is reasonable to assume he resigned in disgust.
In August 2024, the prison population in England and Wales hit a record high. The following March, a savage report from the public accounts committee warned that prisons, already full to bursting, could not cope with such numbers and would overflow by the start of 2026.
The early release of 16,000 prisoners in the last three months of 2024 eased pressure on the system, but now another crisis is forecast for this November. Under Timpson’s law passed in January, a surge in electronic tagging was being frantically prepared for another bout of early releases in September. But pressure from probation unions, parliamentary opponents and victim groups, backed by the rightwing press, has persuaded Burnham to call a halt. Chaos beckons.
Victims of crime may deserve sympathy and support, but they should not dictate justice policy. Kemi Badenoch, meanwhile, should not do anything but apologise for her party in government reducing prisons to their current state.
The facts cannot be repeated too often. England and Wales’s penal policy is the most backward in western Europe. They imprison roughly twice the proportion of the population as Germany, and three times as many as Italy and Spain. Prisoner numbers in England and Wales have doubled in 30 years.
In 2024, a quarter of prisoners in England and Wales were having to share cells designed for one person. Two-thirds were estimated to spend most of their days in their cells with little to occupy them, fuelling reports from prisoners of mental health problems and self-harm. In the 21st century, this is indefensibly primitive.
Prisoners are some of the nation’s most assiduous consumers of drugs. About 40% of prisoners in England and Wales say it is easy to access drugs while inside, cells are simply awash in illegal substances. As for training and rehabilitation to prepare for release, curbed budgets and staff shortages have seen them collapsing.
Half of short-term prisoners reoffend as a result. Rehabilitation – the one sure way to cut reoffending – is a farce. Community sentences such as Timpson’s favoured intensive supervision courts offer an alternative but are still in their infancy.
As for England and Wales’s fixation with incarcerating women, in December 2024, a quarter of those in prison were on remand, awaiting what might not have been imprisonment at all. Most need help, not separation from their families and loved ones, with many said to be victims of worse crimes than they commit. The Prison Reform Trust has pleaded for sentences to take account of family stability, but to no effect. Even Reform UK’s Colin Sutton, the new police and crime commissioner for Norfolk, has said most women in custody should be released.
To allow prisons policy to be led by public opinion is absurd. It should be led by evidence of what works. Many non-violent prisoners will be drug and alcohol addicts chronically in need of effective treatment in the community. There are also the kind of prisoners I used to visit prisons in the London area. They are victims of family or personal breakdown, poverty, homelessness or sheer misfortune. Above all they needed hostels and help.
Nothing more infuriates the pro-prisons lobby than mention of Norway. The reason is that Norway’s prisons work. In the 1990s, the country suffered a dire 70% recidivism rate. It examined evidence and opted for drastic reform. This tied new “correction centres” to local communities, relating rehabilitation to local jobs and family ties. Prisoners were treated with dignity. Reoffending plummeted and Norway’s prison population has been drastically reduced.
The late Ann Widdecombe, a former Tory prisons minister, boldly went to Norway in 2020 with a television crew to see what she called The World’s Most Luxurious Prison. She called it a holiday camp. She admitted it “worked” but was appalled at the absence of what she regarded as penal retribution. Loss of liberty was combined with a total lack of humiliation.
Nothing more typified the British approach to social policy than Widdecombe’s reaction. Foreigners must be wrong, even if she could not explain why. To her, as to many of her compatriots, the survival of our Dickensian prisons embodied justice. Their harshness was an appropriate response to crime. Even if they did not “work”, they must be right.
A liberal society must be able to look abroad, examine evidence and be open to reform. Even in the prison-loving US, states from Texas to Oregon and North Dakota have visited Norway and are professing to learn from it. They know it makes no sense to imprison but not rehabilitate.
Our justice policy is crippled by changes of leadership. Catherine McKinnell, appointed as Timpson’s replacement, is the 13th prison minister in the past decade – a ludicrous number, as if it was a hobby rather than a job. Policy is left at the mercy of rightwing sentiment, fed by victims groups and the press. They are now joined by the prime minister. Beware the autumn.
