New super-jails: a titanic waste of money?

A key part of Labour’s plan to increase prison space has been slammed by independent experts. Further evidence that when it comes to law and order Labour care more about public opinion than proper solutions?

Crime central under New Labour

Controlling crime can be identified as being at the core of New Labour, and Blair’s apparent obsessions with law and order predate his accession to the Labour leadership in 1994. It was when he was shadow Home Secretary in 1993 that the now famous Blair soundbite “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” hit the media headlines. Blair, a man whose antennae seemed naturally tuned in to public opinion, made this statement at around the time when there was almost total moral panic following the murder of James Bulger.

Crime, or perhaps more accurately, the fear of crime, had not always been as high up the political agenda and New Labour perfectly reflected this shift. Figures by the polling agency MORI indicate that in the early 1970s under 10% of the electorate felt that law and order was amongst the top three issues facing Britain. Interest in the issue peaked in 1979, then in the 1980s and 1990s remained around the 10% to 20% mark. Post 1993, however, it rose above 30%. Terence Morris argues therefore that Labour were “driven less by original thinking than by the necessity of being reactive to public opinion”. Further evidence of this comes from the reaction of a number of experts to the government’s consultation paper on the proposed building of three 2,500 capacity jails.

According to the BBC:

‘The proposed giant Titan jails could be dangerous and ministers have failed to explain why they would save money, a prisons watchdog has said.

The National Council of Independent Monitoring Boards said it had “fundamental doubts” about the idea.

The council said ministers appeared to omit any concern for the importance of monitoring conditions in prisons.

Three new Titan jails, each with up to 2,500 inmates, have been proposed in a bid to ease overcrowding.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw defended the plans, saying the prisons would not be the large single units feared by many people.

“These will be prison complexes, prisons within prisons, and one of the benefits of having these large prisons is that we will be able, for example, to have better health care facilities,” he said.

“Above all, these prisons will be built in the areas of greatest pressure so the prisons will be much nearer to prisoners’ families than the prisoners are at the moment.”’