On 27 January, in a victory for campaigners, the Scottish government shelved plans for a new prison in Inverclyde, Greenock to house 350 women. Campaigners had argued that building this new prison ran counter to the recommendations of the recent Angiolini Commission Report on the imprisonment of women in Scotland. The Commission recognised that very many women prisoners are serving short sentences for minor offences, and are themselves victims of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. It therefore recommended closing Cornton Vale prison (which currently holds the majority of Scotland’s female prison population) and in future only using imprisonment for the tiny minority sentenced to long terms for serious crimes, with the remainder of women convicted of criminal offences referred to community rehabilitative services.
The news from Wales is not so positive. After some hold-ups while the local council discussed details of the planning permission, work has now begun on the new ‘super-prison’ at Wrexham. Construction is being carried out by Australian-based multinational Lend Lease, the company which built and manages the Bluewater shopping and leisure complex in Kent, and which is currently contracted to carry out ‘regeneration’ projects in London at Stratford and Elephant & Castle.
The new gaol is costing £212 million and when complete will hold over 2,000 prisoners. It has been marketed to the local population as a positive development which will create jobs and boost the Welsh economy, and to prisoners and their families on the basis it will ‘facilitate the rehabilitation of offenders by making them more accessible to their families, legal advisers and the probation service, enabling a smoother transition back into the community’ and ‘benefit prisoner welfare by allowing Welsh speakers more opportunity to speak the language in an environment where its cultural significance is understood’ (David Jones, former Secretary of State for Wales). In fact, across mid and north Wales the current ‘demand’ for prison places is between 500 and 750. The remaining places will therefore be filled by prisoners from elsewhere, unless political pressure is put on Welsh judges to imprison significantly more people.
Although the contractual arrangements for running HMP Wrexham have not been finalised, it is likely that they will involve private conglomerates of the type already running 17% of the British prison system. While all increases in prison capacity are subject to the ‘M25 effect’ (ie the more places created, the more people sent to prison), the involvement of the profit motive and the political lobbying power of companies hunting contracts makes them even more difficult to reverse. FRFI supports all resistance to prison expansion.
For more information see Community Campaign Against Prison Expansion at www.cape-campaign.org
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 243 February/March 2015
