Easton & Piper: Sentencing and Punishment 2e 
DevelopmentsEaston & Piper: Sentencing and Punishment 2e
Chapter 09
9.2.2 Prison Expansion pp 281-283
Projections:
The latest prison projections for 2008-2015 were published in September 2008.
The highest projected prison population in 2015 is 95,800, the medium figure is 89,700 and the lowest projected prison population is 83,400.
These projections do represent a fall on earlier projections but still indicate a continued high level of imprisonment.(Source: Prison Population Projections 2008-2015, Ministry of Justice Statistics Bulletin, 18 September 2008.)
Latest Prison Population Figures:
On 12th December 2008 the prison population was 83,164. The number of male prisoners was 78,766 and female prisoners was 4,398. (Source: HM Prison Service.)
Prison Performance
The Prison Service Annual Report for 2007-08 was published in July 2008. It reported that the following targets WERE MET: Escapes, Serious Assaults, the rate of positive results from Mandatory Drug Tests, Offending Behaviour Programmes completed, Number of Drug Treatment Programmes Completed, Education (the Number of Basic and Key Work Skills awards achieved), Resettlement and Accommodation Targets (the percentage of prisoners with an employment outcome and settled accommodation on release). It reported that the following targets WERE NOT MET: Self-Inflicted Deaths (Target 112.8 SIDs per 100,000 of the average prison population, Result: 115.5), the proportion of Minority Ethnic Staff (target 6.3%, achieved 6.2%) and the targets on Overcrowding, and Staff Sickness. The average rate of Overcrowding was 24.6%: this refers to the percentage of the prison population held in units of accommodation intended for fewer prisoners.(Source: HM Prison Service Annual Report and Accounts 2007-2008
London, the Stationery Office HC 860, 21 July 2008.)
9.6.1 Rights, fairness and justice pp 308-309
The Commission on English Prisons Today
This independent Commission was established to investigate the purpose and extent of the use of prison in the 21st century. According to its website (www.prisoncommission.org.uk/), the Commission 'will look at the driving forces influencing change and practice including legislation, politics and the media. It will consider the principles, purpose and limits of a penal system and how it should sit alongside other social policy strategies'. It intends to publish its Final Report in 2009.
9.7 Expansionist and reductionist penal policies pp 314-317
A Consultation Paper on Titan Prisons was published by NOMS in June 2008 to consider, inter alia, the implications of the use of such prisons for the delivery of safe and decent regimes, how the prison population should be segmented in these new prisons, and the appropriate methods of commissioning for services supplied within those prisons.
The Government has accepted the proposal for Titan prisons in the Carter Review of Prisons (2007). It is expected that the prisons will offer up to 2,500 places which will incorporate smaller units of 500 offenders which may deal with specific groups of offenders. They will be located in the London area, West Midlands and the North-West. The aim is to open the first prison by 2012. A key rationale for the prisons is cost-effectiveness as it is expected that these larger prisons will provide economies of scale and will be cheaper to build and to run than smaller institutions. It is anticipated that a range of services will be offered in these larger units.
See: Ministry of Justice/NOMS Titan Prisons, Consultation Paper CP10/08.
Critics have focused on the problems of maintaining offender integration and wellbeing in a potentially more impersonal regime. However, the location of the prison in or near the main centres of population is welcomed.
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