"Fundamental Doubts" About Titan Prisons

The National Council of Independent Monitoring Boards says it has "fundamental doubts" about the entire idea of "Titan" prisons.

You might know IMBs better as "Boards of Visitors" -- they visit prisons and listen to detainees, not necessarily about issues like immigration problems, but issues like access to a solicitor, staff behaviour, living conditions, or food.

The National Council feels that the proposed Titan jails (at least 3 jails, with 2500 inmates each, on a site of 50 acres, at £350 million a pop) could be dangerous, that ministers have failed to explain why they would save money, and that ministers appeared to omit any concern for the importance of monitoring conditions in prisons.

Nacro, the Howard League, and the Prison Reform Trust are also against the Titan proposals.

The council said "there will be major and potentially dangerous consequences if services such as health and education are provided centrally, as it will be difficult to protect the most vulnerable prisoners from those who might cause them harm".

The council's president, Dr Peter Selby, said: "Most of our boards favour smaller units and have negative experience of large establishments and clustering of prisons to achieve efficiency, but at the cost of effective rehabilitation. We shall continue to emphasise and carry out our task of monitoring fairness and respect wherever people are imprisoned, and point out the major disadvantages of prisons of a size that present serious management problems."

Both Labour and the Tories favour expanding the prison population, a prison population already the highest per capita in Western Europe.

This flies in the face of a recent study (July 2008) by Professor Carol Hedderman (University of Leicester; a former Assistant Director of research at the Home Office). She argues that the Carter Report (the idea of Titan prisons and expanding the prison estate) was largely "unevidenced." Her main conclusions were that prison reconviction rates have escalated as the population has increased, and that expanding the prison estate will generate, not satiate, demand.

Does that sound like the right way to protect society?