New prisons plan about cost cutting

The Centre's director, Richard Garside, is quoted in today's Financial Times, in a piece looking at the government's plans to replace old Victorian prisons with new ones.

Using the G4S-run Parc prison, near Bridgend in Wales, as a case study, the article examines government plans to relocate 10,000 prisoners to nine new, large prisons, to be built away from population centres.

Prison reformers are concerned that the plans to shift prisoners out of town will make visits from families and friends more difficult. Richard told the paper the plans were driven more by cost-cutting than rehabilitation.

'The size issue is about reducing the unit cost per prisoners', he told the newspaper. 'The new prisons may be managed as big units with not many staff and a lot of automation'.