Call me sexist but prison is no place for a woman
It's surely a surprise to precisely no one that Britain's prisons are in crisis. They have been, on and off, for well over a decade. That's not to diminish the seriousness of the situation, but it's a reflection of an inexcusable lack of planning by the last Conservative government.
In 2016, Theresa May promised to build 10,000 new prison places. Three years later her successor Johnson bumptiously pledged another 10,000 new prison places by 2026. So far, just 6,000 new places have resulted since 2019.
The reason jails are overcrowded are manifold and include the fact that more offenders are being sent to prison and a sclerotic judicial system that sees 17,000 prisoners on remand, which is the highest level for at least 50 years.
As of April there were 84,043 male prisoners and 3,683 female prisoners in England and Wales.
With space rapidly running out, Labour is introducing emergency measures that will release thousands of inmates early – those offenders with sentences between one and four years, who have been released after serving their minimum period but then recalled for breaching their licence, such as by not sticking to their curfew, will be released after just 28 days.
It will include criminals convicted of assault, burglary, theft, fraud, drug dealing and some domestic abusers.
That doesn't sound like justice to me. So here's a solution; release women prisoners. Not all of them obviously; the Rose Wests, Beverley Allitts and Lucy Letbys must stay put and serve their time.
But so few female inmates pose a danger to the public it seems nonsensical to keep them locked up when the men's estate is crying out for space and wardens to staff it. Two-thirds of female prisoners have committed non-violent offences and more than half – 57 per cent – of female prisoners are victims of domestic abuse.
Self-harm in women's prisons is over eight times higher than in the male estate and, most salient of all, when mothers are sent to prison – an estimated 50 per cent of offenders – families are broken up with often lifelong consequences for the children.
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