PRISON OVERCROWDING IN THE UK IS A PROBLEM THAT WILL ONLY GET WORSE

U.K. prisons are full to overflowing and this is not necessarily due to an increase in crime.
The fault lies not with the prisons but is due to fundamental flaws at the heart of the Criminal Justice System itself. It is antiquated and desperately requires a radical overhaul. I had great faith in the UK legal system, until I recently discovered firsthand how it is entirely possible for an upright model citizen to be wrongly convicted of crimes that never happened. A person with no previous convictions can be proven guilty with absolutely no concrete evidence, purely by accusation. It should not be possible for innocent people to be incarcerated indefinitely due to the lies of false accusers and inadequate funding for a proper defense. There are enough real criminals to fill our prisons.

Two years ago a new sentence was introduced which made things even worse - the I.P.P. sentence (Indeterminate Sentence for Public Protection). This means it is theoretically possible for a prisoner to remain incarcerated for up to 99 years! The Judge will give a minimum tariff which a prisoner is required to serve before he can apply for parole and after that he has to satisfy the parole board that he is no longer a danger to the public in order to be considered for release. To prove this an inmate has to attend certain courses to address his offending behavior - courses which are not always readily available. This means prisoners are being dealt these open-ended sentences on a grand scale and are not progressing through the system.

Although the I.P.P. sentence was originally introduced with the very good intention of protecting the public against highly dangerous individuals it can now adversely affect the guilty and innocent alike. It can seriously hamper their progression through the system, exacerbating overcrowding in already overcrowded prisons.

For a guilty prisoner who wishes to participate in courses to genuinely address his offending behavior, he may come up against the problem of not being able to get a placement for the relevant course by the time his tariff is up. So supposing he has been set a minimum tariff of two years, he will have to remain in prison longer if the course is not available in the prison he was sent to initially, or he cannot be transferred to one which runs them within that timescale.

As for the innocent, they are faced with an even worse predicament - an absolute bureaucratic limbo - since in maintaining their innocence they quite rightly refuse the offending behavior courses with the result that they may never be released. Perversely a guilty inmate may qualify for parole years sooner than an innocent one protesting their innocence.

There is absolutely no recognition of the plight of innocent prisoners as prison policy dictates that all inmates are viewed as guilty and the prison and probation service must abide by the decision of the courts.

Here in the UK we are scheduled to begin construction of three vast "Super prisons" due to be completed between 2012 and 2014. They have been designed to house up to 2,500 inmates each, but currently there is no funding available within the present budget. We are also building prison ships which look like huge, ugly floating slabs of concrete.

I am convinced that constructing more prisons is not the answer. For all but the most serious offenders, more emphasis should be placed on rehabilitation within the community. And for the wrongly convicted, the appeals process should be less convoluted so that they are not taking up valuable space needed for the guilty.