New Labour’s prison legacy
| Published date | 01 September 2010 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0264550510381326 |
| Date | 01 September 2010 |
| Author | Geoff Dobson |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
New Labour’s prison legacy
Geoff Dobson, Deputy Director, Prison Reform Trust
Abstract This article charts the massively increased reliance on the use of custody
under New Labour. It highlights the considerable social and economic costs of such
an approach, while also drawing attention to a number of positive developments.
Keywords custody, drugs and alcohol, education, incarceration, justice
reinvestment, learning disabilities, mental health, prisons, prisoners, prisoners’
families, restorative justice, victims
It is tempting to call this comment piece ‘Incarceration, Incarceration, Incarceration’
as a parody of the priority New Labour promised on raising standards of education.
Since 1997 more than 20,000 additional prison places have been provided in
England and Wales, an increase of 33 per cent (Prison Reform Trust, 2009). The
prison population stands today at an all-time high of more than 85,000, with a
manifesto promise at the May 2010 general election of a further increase in
capacity to 96,000 by 2014. With an imprisonment rate of 154 per 100,000
we have become the top incarcerator in Western Europe. Rates in more moderate
France and Germany are 96 and 88 per 100,000. It is disappointing to record how
a government whose watchword was social inclusion failed to join up its social and
its criminal justice policies and ended up alienating still further those on the margins
of society.
These reflections are made at a time of unprecedented fiscal debt and in the midst
of drastic public sector cuts. It is impossible to imagine that the fevered prison build-
ing programme, at a cost of £170,000 per place, can possibly be allowed to con-
tinue. Equally, it is impossible to believe that the current level of human and
economic waste from chronic over-use of imprisonment is sustainable, with the aver-
age cost of locking up each individual standing at £45,000 per year and two out of
every three prisoners being reconvicted within two years of release. Earlier this year
the cross party Justice Committee published Cutting Crime: The Case for Justice Rein-
vestment (House of Commons Justice Committee, 2010), a thorough, carefully
Probation Journal
Copyright ª2010 NAPO Vol 57(3): 322-328
DOI: 10.1177/0264550510381326
www.napo.org.uk
http://prb.sagepub.com
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