Part 1

This paper sets out the details of the increase in prison population, the drivers for longer prison sentences and examples of places where the trend of an ever-growing prison population has been reversed while seeing crime fall. Part 2 which will set out the eagerly awaited proposals for reform, is expected in “Spring”.

Much of the contents of this review will be more than familiar to regular readers.

Chapter One shows how the prison population has grown by over 40,000 people since 1993, with adults sentenced for indictable offences now serving longer sentences, noting that England and Wales also have one of the highest prison population rates in Western Europe.

Chapter two summarises the drivers behind the increase in the use and length of custody. It concludes that the increase “is not the consequence of a considered strategy as the most effective measure to reduce crime”. Nor can it be explained by rising crime levels. In fact, latest estimates from the Crime Survey showed there has been an overall general decline in incidents of headline crime since 2017.

Mr Gauke has not been afraid to name the elephant in the room, the political desire to be tough on crime:

“The increase has been the result of many decisions made by successive governments and a “tough on crime” narrative that has focused primarily on punishment – understood as incarceration and longer sentences – on occasion responding to embedded misunderstandings about sentencing and high-profile individual cases. In tandem, there has been an underinvestment in probation and other alternatives that can provide rehabilitation and reduce reoffending.”

Chapter Three

Chapter three outlines the need for change, and advocates for a system rooted in all the current statutory principles of sentencing. The former Lord Chancellor sets out how the emphasis on longer-term imprisonment has placed significant strain on the system, forcing successive governments to adopt costly and high-risk emergency measures.

He shows that these emergency measures have attempted to both increase short-term capacity (often in ways which are expensive and risky) and reduce demand by expediting the release of prisoners, such as the measures we saw in the autumn of 2024 when prisoners were released 40 per cent (as opposed to 50 per cent) of the way through their sentence.

Importantly, this incoherent approach is incredibly expensive as the “tough on crime” narrative leads to politicians of all parties committing to increasingly expensive prison building programmes; the current plans adopted by the new Government are costed at  £9.4 – £10.1 billion.

Conclusion

Mr Gauke makes it clear that the political impetus to simplify criminal justice policy to a “lock them up and throw away the key approach” is costly and ineffective:

“The piecemeal and unstrategic manner in which sentence lengths have increased in recent decades has meant that there has been insufficient consideration of all of the statutory aims of sentencing: punishment, crime reduction, reform and rehabilitation, public protection and reparation. Punishment is an important aim for the criminal justice system and prison plays a vital role in delivering punishment. But too often decision-making has been based on an approach that punishment is all that matters, and that the only form of punishment that counts is imprisonment.”

He notes that the consequences of this approach “has left England and Wales with a very high prison population by historic and international standards, which has diverted resources from other parts of the criminal justice system that could contribute more to reducing reoffending“. He argues that a more balanced approach would enable resources to be “more effectively deployed to reduce crime and the number of victims.”

Of course most people, certainly Government ministers, will be impatient to see Mr Gauke’s recommendations in Part 2 for just how this could be achieved.

Thanks to Andy Aitchison for kind permission to use the header image in this post. You can see Andy’s work here