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Britain plans 14,000 new prison spaces

The British Government has announced plans to build four new prisons with 6,400 spaces over the next seven years.

Justice secretary Shabana Mahmood told the BBC, however, that the system could still run out of space over the next few years, adding that “building alone is not enough” to deal with a capacity crisis.

As well as the new prisons, the plan includes a further 6,400 places in new blocks on current sites, 1,000 ‘rapid-deployment’ cells, and the refurbishment of more than 1,000 existing cells.

There are also proposals for a new “streamlined planning route” to make it easier to secure planning permission for new prisons.

In total, there are plans for an extra 14,000 prison spaces by 2031.

Call for investment in legal aid

Since coming into power earlier this year, the Labour government has released thousands of inmates early to free up space.

The President of the Law Society of England and Wales Richard Atkinson welcomed the announcement, but said that “as an essential service protecting the public, the criminal-justice system can only be dealt with holistically”.

The Law Society Gazette of England and Wales quoted Atkinson as saying that building more prisons had to be matched by investment in legal aid, the Crown Prosecution Service, and courts.

He also highlighted the need to invest in prisoner rehabilitation to reduce re-offending rates, and tackle the court backlog to reduce the remand population.