Clash over the Titans

The Government is consulting on proposals for three new 'titan prisons' based on its projection that the prison population will rise to over 95,000 by 2014. The Government aims to have the first titan prison operational by 2012. The three locations for the titans will be London, the West Midlands and the north-west, where available prison places are currently outweighed by demand.

New Labour came to power promising to be "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime". Since then it has overseen a massive rise in the prison population from 60,000 in 1997 to over 80,000 today. The UK now locks up more people than any other European country.

Each titan prison will provide 2,500 prison places, which the consultation paper states will be through five 500-place units within a single perimeter. Brian Caton, General Secretary of the Prison Officers Association, said "we are not affecting many of the people we are releasing . . . because of overcrowding". Yet, overcrowding is already built into these designs. The Ministry of Justice states that in fact titans will provide "2,100 uncrowded places, with the capacity to hold up to 2,500 prisoners through planned overcrowding".

The Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers, states that the proposals are "flying in the face of our, and others' evidence, that smaller prisons work better than large ones. They may be more efficient, but at the cost of being less effective."

The large sites required to build titans (a minimum of 50 acres) have also raised concerns that the locations will be remote and will therefore hinder access for prisoners' families – a key component of rehabilitation. Harry Fletcher of the National Association of Probation Officers states that all the evidence is "for smaller units close to where prisoners live". Sarah Salmon, assistant director of Action for Prisoners' Families, is concerned that, "titan prisons will result in more prisoners being held further from home, making it harder for them to maintain family contact. And that will impact on levels of re-offending."

In the consultation paper, the Prisons Minister states that "prisons are the right place for the most serious and dangerous offenders" – but around 15% of the prison population is serving a sentence of less than one year, and only 9% is serving a life sentence, as BBC figures show. The Prison Reform Trust states that "community punishments have been proven to be often more effective than short prison sentences".

You can debate prisons policy online on the Justice Select Committee online inquiry: Justice Reinvestment – which allows you to debate criminal justice system costs. The Howard League points out that "the government says that each new titan prison will cost some £390 million for the land and the build. For this we could have 13 brand new secondary schools or four big new hospitals with 4,000 beds AND 122 new operating theatres".

The consultation document 'Titan prisons' can be downloaded from the Ministry of Justice website. The deadline for responses is 28th August 2008.