Many of the prisons in England and Wales are old and inadequate. But closing them is surprisingly unpopular
Save time by listening to our audio articles as you multitaskViolent crime in England and Wales peaked in 1995 according to the British Crime Survey, the best guide to the true level of offending. But the adult prison population has risen. Some 80,000 people are inside today—a figure that is expected to rise to 98,500 by 2026 thanks to stiffer sentencing, a rise in the number of police officers and a push to clear the backlog in the courts that was caused partly by covid-19.
The easiest way to do that is to build on land the government already owns. Finding and getting planning consent on new property is expensive and slow, says Julian Le Vay, a former finance director for the Prison Service. Former industrial sites are ideal—in 2017 a prison opened near Wrexham in north Wales on the site of a former tyre factory. The next best thing is property adjacent to existing prisons, since a place that already has a prison might be amenable to another one.
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