Prison isn’t working, but more Welsh prisons being built

Plans are afoot to raise the number of prisoners at privately run Parc Prison in Bridgend by more than a third, and the government is calling for a new jail to be built in North Wales. Parc would have the capacity for more than 1,500 inmates if the new block is given the go-ahead, and the North Wales prison would house hundreds more people. These will go some way towards reaching the Home Office’s target of 10,000 new prison places in the next 2 years.
The Probation Service in Wales has expressed concern that the costs of expansion could divert resources from other areas and suggested there should be a debate about prison population.
No debate is needed. Prisons are failing, and have failed for years: They do nothing to address the number 1 cause of crime in this country: the massive inequality that exists between the rich and the poor; prison slavery is on the rise, where inmates are forced to work for peanuts for private companies who make mega-bucks out of bonded labour; there are re-offending rates of up to 70% for some categories; prison does not rehabilitate – despite the rhetoric the system’s just not built for this; overcrowding is huge, with too many prisoners and too few resources prisons can’t meet the medical, educational and welfare needs of their inmates; more than half of all prisoners have mental health problems, but few get proper treatment meaning suicide and self-harm are rife; many prisoners are illiterate or semi-literate; and there are hundreds – possibly up to 2,000 – innocent prisoners in our jails, all victims of miscarriages of justice.