After serving 20 years in jail,I know that most detainees hope to live a crime-free life on release, but until the corrupt atmosphere of our prisons is tackled, or rehabilitation will remain a distant dreamThe government is right to believe decided finally to shut outdated prisons,some of which George Osborne described as “relics from Victorian times”. The plan is that over the next five years the outmoded prisons will be sold for development and nine recent prisons will be built at a cost of around £1bn. The recent facilities will house up to 10000 prisoners, and in the long speed are projected to save around £80m a year. The Treasury says that the plans will make the prison system in England and Wales “fit for purpose in the 21st century”.
Much as the closure of the older corroding and socially corrosive prisons like Brixton, or Wandsworth,Pentonville and Leeds should be welcomed, getting our prison system fit for purpose in this or any other century is going to take much more than the scrapping of outmoded and the building of a few more recent prisons.
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Source: theguardian.com