Don’t close the city Victorian jails
The newly re-appointed chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor, has told The Guardian that he thinks 14 Victorian prisons should be closed as they are insanitary and not providing activities.
You might think that I would agree with him, but I don’t.
He correctly identifies what is wrong with the prisons. Wandsworth is designated as having space for 1,000 men but is holding 600 over that. Even 1,000 is too many and is a number assessed by the prison service itself. Similarly the other prisons he identifies as being not fit for purpose are dilapidated, vermin infested and simply locking men up all day.
In the Guardian interview he identifies Pentonville, Liverpool, Leicester, Lewis, Exeter, Bristol and Leeds. There are other prisons built over a hundred years ago which have similarly been allowed to deteriorate. There are two problems with these prisons: gross overcrowding and crumbling fabric.
The Guardian article rightly points out that these prisons are holding twice, sometimes event three times the number of people they are meant to hold. Even the official capacity tends to allow for overcrowding. The daily number of prisoners often masks the churn of men going in and out, often on remand or short sentences. This means that the cells are not cleaned, they cannot get cleaning materials or decent clothing. When I visited prisons I often found men shuffling around in misshapen filthy jogging bottoms, with shoes that didn’t fit. They don’t get pyjamas so have to sleep and live in these clothes sometimes for weeks.
Sharing a cell not much bigger than a shop changing room with a stranger and an open toilet and a window that opens only a crack so there is no ventilation is hardly conducive to encouraging a healthy and clean lifestyle.
It’s not the Victorian building that is the seat of the problem. Remember that Oxford prison was turned into a very expensive luxury Malmaison hotel using the cells as rooms. A standard cell room costs £359 a night. The Victorians could build. The buildings often have good sight lines, natural light and ventilation. It’s the fact that far too many men are crammed in and the buildings have not been maintained so they are crumbling, rat infested and putrid.
The argument in favour of keeping the city based jails is that they are close to people’s families, to local services including housing and health, and can be supported by voluntary organisations. They also feel local to the men detained in them. They are all going to be released sooner or later and as we all know, the best hope of leading a good and useful life on release is someone to love you, somewhere to live and something to do. All this is more achievable in people reside in prisons local to their city homes.
Is the government investing in these prisons? No. It is spending billions building huge out of town jails that are dislocated from services and communities. Berwyn prison on the outskirts of Wrexham holds men mainly from Liverpool and Manchester. It was built to force the majority of men to share cells and without sufficient activity, education, health or work facilities for the 2,000 plus men.
We don’t need more prisons. We need fewer prisons. But if we are going to have prisons they should not be crowded, they should be clean and airy and healthy with education and work opportunities so that the men, and women, have something useful to do each day.
We should look to a prison population of perhaps 30,000 men who could be housed decently in city jails if there was investment in buildings and activities. Resources could be diverted to community resources following the principles of ‘justice reinvestment’.
Now that would be a policy for the next government.
Frances Crook is co-convenor of the Commission on Political Power and former Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform.
This article was first published on her Substack.