During this general election campaign, the prison population in England and Wales has passed 85,000 for the first time, with the impact of the Government’s decision to end the early-release scheme ahead of the election now being felt across the prison system.

Yet despite the ongoing growth of the prison population, and the vast sums of public money that are consequently being poured into urgently increasing capacity, the issue of law and order, and prison specifically, has received very little attention so far in the election campaign, other than the ongoing debate about whether crime is rising or falling. This may be the result of a shared interest in avoiding awkward questions, at least on the part of the Labour and Conservative parties. Both continue to promise to increase prison capacity significantly in the next parliament, despite the weight of evidence demonstrating that these further increases would be neither affordable nor effective.

Waste

What should be clear to all parties is that the criminal justice system cannot continue to operate as it is now, with billions wasted on building endless new prisons. With severe cuts in public spending inevitable, this prison-focused approach is no longer sustainable, whatever the manifestos say. So what is the solution? As it happens, the House of Commons Justice Committee, made up of MPs from the three leading political parties, carried out a thorough and wide-ranging review of criminal justice policy for their report ‘Cutting crime: the case for justice reinvestment’, published earlier this year.

Justice reinvestment is a measure by which money that is currently spent on prison can be diverted to be more productively spent on locally-based initiatives that tackle the underlying problems which lead to crime. The report employs this approach in considering how best to run the criminal justice system in England and Wales, and the result is a comprehensive blueprint for reform. Its recommendations include initially capping the prison population at its current level and then reducing it over time by a third and introducing direct financial incentive for local agencies to spend money in ways which will reduce prison numbers.

At a time when none of the parties can afford to fund the sort of prison-centred, tough-sounding pledges that are normally abundant during election campaigns, we need a new approach to criminal justice policy. Arguably too abstract and technical to have an impact in the cut-and-thrust of a campaign, once the election is over the recommendations of the Justice Committee report could provide a ready-made solution to the crisis in the criminal justice system for whichever party wins the forthcoming election. It will be up to the politicians to see sense and put this ambitious plan into action.

Jon Collins is Campaign Director for the Criminal Justice Alliance, a coalition of 48 organisations, including Nacro, involved in policy and practice across the criminal justice system.