April 24, 2009: Howard League On Titans' Doom

Commenting on BBC and Independent reports that the Government will scrap Titan prisons in favour of five 1500-place prisons, Frances Crook, Director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, noted that:

"Titan jails were a disastrous idea and are now a titanic policy failure. Building five 1500-place prisons - bigger than any other jail in the country - is not the answer to the chronic problems of overcrowding and violence in our jails."

"Overcrowded, squalid prison conditions lead to rioting, violence and chaos, which is dangerous for prisoners, staff and local communities. In the past 5 years, there have been 5,337 fires started in English and Welsh jails. 120 of these were at Wandsworth, currently the biggest prison in the country. Prisons are awash with drugs, violence and arson and the government is planning to inflict all this on more local communities."

"The answer to rising prison populations is not to build more failing jails, which churn out unreformed prisoners into local communities, more damaged and dangerous from having spent time in our colleges of crime. It is time for the government to look at wholesale reform of the criminal justice system and spend taxpayers' money on projects and initiatives that work in reducing reoffending."

The comments were responding to information that plans to build three giant "Titan" prisons holding 2,500 prisoners each are to be dropped. The Independent suggested that this may be because the Treasury objected to the  £1.2bn cost of the Titan building programme.