The Tories have brought the prison system to the brink of complete collapse. They must take it into their own hands.

We could not afford to continue this penal system, even if it worked.

September 11, 2024, 5:52 p.m.(Updated 17:53)

Now they are finally paying attention to the issue. After years of failure, parts of the right-wing press are suddenly interested in the state of the criminal justice system.

The early release of hundreds of prisoners sparked far-right outrage this week. “Today is a day of shame,” said Robert Jenrick, the candidate for the Conservative leadership. “The solution is simple: build more prisons and lock up notorious offenders for longer.”

How exactly should this “day of shame” be prevented? Should Keir Starmer conjure up a prison out of thin air within two months? And out of what? Cheap magic wands and balloon animals?

If Jenrick had any intellectual decency, he would have apologised to the public for the ineptitude of the governments he proudly served and the mismanagement they committed that led to this outcome. Instead, he placed the blame on those who had to clean up his mess: a child taunting his mother as she bends down to mop the floor.

The reporting in some right-wing newspapers was exactly the same, if not worse. “Do the Hokey Chokey,” The sun said. The Email went straight to the point. “After just 68 days: Starmergeddon,” it said above a picture of former prisoners celebrating their release. “Who voted for all this?”

The answer is: you do. Email voted explicitly for it when it urged its readers to support a Conservative party that was bankrupting prisons. And it voted even more strongly for it when it supported the ideas that led to that result. It voted for it when it insisted on the idea that only longer and harsher prison sentences can solve crimes.

What we are seeing today has nothing to do with Labour. It is the definitive refutation of an authoritarian argument for criminal justice. It does not work. It never has. It helps no one: not the victims, not the offenders, not the staff, not the taxpayer. It does not even help the politicians who represent it.

The prisoner's early release made headlines and topped the TV news. But another event took place last week that was barely reported. It was a report by all the living Lord Chief Justices of England and Wales on the state of sentencing and prisons, published by the Howard League for Penal Reform. Its findings were devastating. It was as accurate and comprehensive a dismantling of policy as I have ever read.

In the half century that the authors were involved in the Act, Britain has had a tough, hard-nosed prison policy of “lock up and throw away the key”. Prison sentences have roughly doubled, as has the prison population. In 1991 there were just over 40,000 people in prison. Today there are over 88,000. The Ministry of Justice's central estimate is that we will reach 105,800 in 2028. We have the highest imprisonment rate per capita in Western Europe.

How did this happen? Well, The Sun and the Email We are witnessing a vicious circle that begins with media coverage, followed by harsher sentences and finally culminates in a rapid increase in prison numbers.

First, something terrible happens. For example, a teenager is killed by a speeder. Then there is a campaign. The teenager's mother demands harsher penalties. They go to the Today program, and they cry, and they talk about their son, and we all cry with them as we stand in the kitchen making our morning coffee, and we get sad and angry.

Rationally, we might think that judges should have leeway in sentencing because they have seen the case first hand. But reason always loses in the battle against emotion. During these campaigns, we are all on the side of the grieving family. The government is listening. A criminal justice bill is passed that increases the statutory maximum sentence and introduces mandatory minimum sentences in the area concerned.

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And then something happens that hardly anyone notices. One of the Sentencing Council's tasks is to ensure that the sentencing structure is appropriate. This means that increasing the sentence for a particular crime, such as dangerous driving, helps to lengthen the sentence overall.

These longer prison sentences do not deter future criminals. There are certain tough approaches that do. The likelihood of being caught – for example, through surveillance cameras – does seem to affect crime. But the consequences of being caught do not seem to. “It is well known,” the top judges said, “that longer prison sentences have little deterrent effect.”

Rather, the main impact of these sentences is to almost completely cripple the prison system. When prisons are overcrowded with offenders, there is virtually no meaningful daily activity left – the kind of activity that actually reduces recidivism.

Last year, His Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons found that 42 percent of prisoners spent more than 22 hours in their cells. Access to the library, gym, work and education was restricted. Self-harm, suicide and assault rates have soared.

Prisons of this capacity are not fit for purpose. They do not serve rehabilitation. They break already broken people even further and then send them out into the world to commit crimes again.

The side effect is the cost. Even with these terrible regimes, it still costs £51,724 to keep someone in prison for a year. We could not afford to continue with this punitive regime even if it worked.

Year after year, we see the same process: Authoritarian politicians, egged on by an authoritarian press, promise to crack down on crime ever more harshly. And this is the result. Prisons are bursting at the seams. Police warn that they will not be able to guarantee public safety. This is the latest proof of where this approach to criminal justice is leading.

Jenrick and his friends in the right-wing press are desperately looking for someone to blame. They can start by looking in the mirror.