Make more use of open prisons, former minister says

The UK should “make more use of open prisons” to avoid overcrowding and reduce reoffending, the man leading the government’s sentencing review has suggested.

David Gauke told the Times that “we have run out of space” in prisons and there is “an opportunity” for the system to change if inmates are given more freedom to leave prison to study and work during the day.

The former Conservative justice secretary has been called in by the government to review sentencing and tackle overcrowding.

His comments follow visits to three prisons in Spain, where reforms have seen 25% of inmates placed in open prisons.

He said the policy saved money and better prepared inmates for release which made them less likely to reoffend.

Gauke served as justice secretary between January 2018 and July 2019 in Theresa May’s Cabinet.

Earlier this year to he was appointed to lead a Government sentencing review, which is expected to consider scrapping short sentences and toughening up community orders as an alternative to jail.

The review was a Labour manifesto pledge and the party has also appointed Lord Timpson, former head of the key-cutting chain that hires ex-offenders and chief of the Prison Reform Trust, as its prisons minister.

“I think there is an increasing recognition that we have gone down the route of increasing sentences to an extent that it’s doing nothing to reduce crime but it is causing significant costs,” Gauke told the Times.

“This is not about being soft on crime, it is about more effectively reducing crime.”

The government has already released 5,500 prisoners early in an emergency plan to free up cells and stop the justice system collapsing, and has also announced a sentencing review aimed at providing more non-custodial sentences.

The policy is due to be reviewed in 18 months.

The Ministry of Justice has promised to find a total of 14,000 cell spaces in jails by 2031.

Some 6,400 of these will be at newly built prisons, with £2.3 billion towards the cost over the next two years.

But earlier in December, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme that just building more prisons will not solve the overcrowding crisis.

Asked whether the estate would be short of cells within three years, even with 14,000 extra places, Mahmood said: “We will run out because even all of that new supply, with the increase in prison population that we will see as a result of that new supply, doesn’t help you with the rise in demand, because demand is still rising faster than any supply could catch up with.”

Gauke has also said that building more prisons is not the answer and a more “strategic” approach is needed to free up space.

The sentencing review is expected to make its recommendations in the spring.

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