August 31

August 31, 2007: Prison Capacity Rising

The government is dealing with pressures on the prison estate by building more capacity.
The official view is that prison should be reserved for serious, violent and prolific offenders. The government states that it is committed to providing prison places for those offenders (some of whom will now spend longer in prison).

However, as the prison estate is close to full capacity additional places are required to manage demand in the short term. Since 1997 the government has increased prison capacity by nearly 20,000 places.

A new capacity-building programme has been put in place to deliver 8,000 new prison places by 2012. Just over 4,000 of these places will be provided by new prisons. The remaining places will be delivered by expansions at existing prisons. The government already owns sites at Maghull and Belmarsh West. The investigation of other sites is part of a national site search.

As a result capacity will increase by around 2,200 places in 2007. A further 1,500 new prison places were announced on 19 June 2007. Work started immediately on 500 of the extra places, the first of which will come into use in January 2008. The composition of the further 1,000 places will be decided in the light of Lord Carter's report into the long-term future of the prison estate and the supply and demand of prison places.

In order to ensure rapid delivery of this additional accommodation, a range of build options will be explored including quick build units, temporary custodial units and new houseblocks. The first new prison in operation was HMP Kennet, which is now open. Planning permission has been granted for the site at Maghull, which we expect to deliver 600 new places by 2010. The government are submitting a planning application in respect of a third site owned by NOMS adjacent to HMP Belmarsh. The conversion of Kennet was financed by NOMS and the prison is run by HM Prison Service. The Government have made a commitment that the operation of new capacity will be roughly shared between the private and public sectors.

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