The Conservative Party has finally cracked the code on crime prevention: build more prisons. Not fewer criminals. Not better schools or mental health services or anything so tedious as addressing why people commit crimes in the first place. Just 50,000 new cells, because apparently the solution to a broken system is to make the system bigger.
The logic is pristine. Prisoners currently get released early because prisons are full. So the answer is: fill them slower by building more prisons. It’s like solving a traffic jam by adding more cars to the road, except the cars are human beings and the road is the criminal justice system.
The party’s pitch is that this will “stop prisoners being released early and cut crime.” The first part is mathematically true—you cannot release someone early if you have infinite cells. The second part requires believing that the mere existence of a cell reduces crime before anyone enters it, which is either optimistic or insane depending on how charitable you’re feeling.
Where’s the evidence that warehousing more people reduces crime? Nowhere, but evidence is for think tanks. The Tories have a press release and a number that sounds impressive. Fifty thousand. That’s bigger than most cities. That’s a criminal hotel chain with better occupancy rates than Premier Inn.
The real achievement here is the commitment to the bit. They’ve looked at a system that isn’t working and decided the solution isn’t reform—it’s expansion. It’s the policy equivalent of treating a broken leg by buying a bigger cast.