The prison population of England and Wales stood at 70,683 on 17 May 2002. On the same day the previous year it was 66,006. The ‘Certified Normal Accommodation’ is 63,033, 7,650 less than the actual number of men, women, boys and girls crammed into the decaying old institutions and the new ones rapidly being brought into use through private finance initiatives.

The number of men and women in gaol in Britain has been growing steadily since 1993, following a reduction during the preceding five years. This reduction had in turn followed the last great ‘overcrowding crisis’ of the late 1980s, but came far too late for the then Tory government to avoid the massive prisoner uprising, which swept through the system in 1990.

Although the 1990 revolt, which began at Strangeways prison in Manchester, was primarily caused by the appalling attitude and brutality of prison staff, there can be no doubt that the overcrowded, insanitary conditions in which prisoners were being held for up to 23 hours a day, for weeks on end played a major role in fuelling discontent. Since Strangeways, the state has largely kept the prison population subdued through carrot-and-stick measures such as parole and the Incentives and Earned Privileges Scheme. But with more and more prisoners shoved into the system every week, many of these measures become inoperable, and ultimately irrelevant. The desire for ‘privileges’ cannot be used to divide and rule if there are none to be had and the system can only manage containment.

Since John Major made his infamous ‘prison works’ speech in 1993, a succession of Prime Ministers and Home Secretaries, first Conservative and now Labour, have fought for the ‘tough on crime’ prize, vying to see who can increase sentencing by the most. All the hype about ‘diversion from custody’, ‘weekend imprisonment’ and more electronic tagging cannot disguise the fact that more and more people are being sent to prison for longer and longer, with anyone convicted of two violent crimes getting an automatic life sentence, and other mandatory severe sentences for repeat offenders in the pipeline. The Penal Affairs Consortium has pointed out that

‘At present, prisoners serving less than 12 months in prison comprise less than 12 % of the total prison population. The major expansion of the prison population during the 1990s has been mainly a result of many more people receiving significantly longer prison sentences, even though there has not been an overall increase in offence seriousness.

‘There is a danger that penal reformers will be tempted to accept the proposition that increased resort to community sentences for less serious offending should go hand-in-hand with ensuring that the public is protected from more serious offenders through the greater use of long prison terms. Such propositions have great political value but the effect could be to drive up the prison population faster than ever before. The experience of the USA in the last 20 years should leave nobody in any doubt that it could happen here.’ (Newsletter of the Penal Affairs Consortium, April 2002)

Locking up more women

For example, at Holloway prison, north London, women are held in dormitory accommodation; although there is in-cell sanitation, the only access to showers or baths is during ‘association’ periods. Due to overcrowding and alleged understaffing, these association periods are entirely subject to the whim of the staff on duty on any given day, and prisoners are going for up to five days at a time without being able to wash.

Locking up more black people

Almost all the foreign national prisoners will be deported at the end of their sentences, irrespective of whether they had lived in Britain prior to their arrest. In addition, on 31 March 2002, English and Welsh prisons held 640 prisoners, who were detained purely under immigration legislation. These are people who have either committed no crime at all, or who have finished their criminal sentences and are being detained pending deportation or an appeal against it. FRFI learned of one particularly appalling example of such detention. A Nigerian national, who had lived and worked in Britain for 15 years, was imprisoned for two years for fraud. Had he been British he would undoubtedly have served his sentence in an open prison, and been released on an electronic tag after 10 months. Instead he served one year in a Category C, closed but low security, prison. At the end of this time, instead of being released, he was detained in prison under the Immigration Act, pending his appeal against deportation. As there was no space to put him anywhere more ‘suitable’ he was moved to the notorious Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight, where he was held in solitary confinement in the segregation unit for two weeks before being located a place on a wing.

Locking up more children

Locking up everyone

Source:

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!

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