Close prisons rather than try to fix them
Our Director Richard spoke about the prisons crisis at a meeting of the Friends of Le Monde Diplomatique earlier this week.
Richard said that that 'the prisons crisis is not, fundamentally, a crisis in prisons: one that can be resolved if the right reforms, the right action, is taken. It is a crisis of prisons: of our unbending attempts to treat a complex set of social problems - violence, drug, alcohol and mental health problems, poverty and disadvantage, social antagonisms - as if they are a simple set of crime problems, be resolved through punishment'.
He went on to say that 'we will start to address the prisons crisis when we stop trying to fix prisons and instead start closing them'.
The text of his speech and slides are available on our website here.
You can also hear Richard's speech and the question and answer session here.