Prison overcrowding crisis due to 'tough on crime' talk

The UK's prison overcrowding crisis has been fuelled by politicians' attempts to seem "tough on crime", a major government review has found.

- JABED AHMED and HOLLY BANCROFT

David Gauke, the former Conservative lord chancellor chairing Labour’s sentencing review, said longer jail terms have been a “knee-jerk” policy that has brought the prison system “dangerously close to collapse”.

The Independent Sentencing Review report is a stark break from decades of tough rhetoric from politicians, who increased sentences for individual crimes driving up the prison population. Mr Gauke said Labour must break from this “penal populism” as the political drive to appear tough on crime “does not deliver justice for victims, it fails them”.

The report, published yesterday, said that ways to cut crime and reduce offending had been overlooked. The panel will report back in the spring with suggested reforms to the justice system. This interim paper found that England and Wales have one of the highest prison populations in western Europe, leading to resources being diverted to cope with overcrowding rather than reducing reoffending and improving safety.

At the end of 2024, there were more than 85,000 adult prisoners, an increase of more than 40,000 since 1993, the report found. The probation system is similarly stretched, with 240,497 people under probation supervision by September 2024.