Straw dumps titan prisons
By politics.co.uk staff
Jack Straw has confirmed plans to dump the titan prison scheme.
The statement – made in the Commons this afternoon – had been widely anticipated since last week.
Mr Straw described how he believed the prisons were a good idea, but that “most [of the people] consulted took a different view and thought the advantages would be outweighed by the disadvantages”.
He continued: “The right approach is to deliver the places not through titans.”
Responding to the statement, shadow justice secretary Dominic Grieve asked why it had taken mr Straw so long to respond to almost-unversal objections to the scheme.
“Is it because the government ran out of money, or because it ran out of spin?” he asked.
Both opposition parties opposed titans, as do a wide-range of penal reform groups.
Liberal Democrat justice spokesman David Howarth said: “It is good news that the government has finally realised that Titan jails were a colossal waste of money and have abandoned their ridiculous plans.”
Leaks to the media indicate the Ministry is keen to frame the decision as one based on a rethink, where consultation objections were listened to and implemented, rather than anything to do with the Budget.
Penal reform groups despised the scheme because it flew in the face of documented rehabilitation evidence, which firmly points to improved rehabilitation rates in small, local prisons where inmates have frequent familial visits.
Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform said: “Titan jails were a disastrous idea and are now a titanic policy failure.
“The answer to rising prison populations is not to build more failing jails, which churn out unreformed prisoners into local communities, more damaged and dangerous from having spent time in our colleges of crime.”
The government was also wary of community responses to the prisons, which would have held around 2,500 inmates.
The total number of prison places is still set to increase to 96,000 by 2014.
