Government announce intentions to build nine new prisons to replace ‘Victorian’ jails

This announcement came last November. One of the aims of IWOC is to organise against the expansion of the prison industrial complex in the UK, including the nine proposed mega prisons, which will harm the working class and create increasing infrastructure to exploit prisoners and profit from their imprisonment.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34763339

 

Nine new prisons will open in England and Wales – five by 2020 – under plans to close “Victorian” jails and sell them for housing, the government says.

The new sites have not been decided but about 10,000 inmates will be moved in a bid to save about £80m a year.

The plans form part of the chancellor’s spending review, due on 25 November.

There is speculation that Pentonville in north London might be closed, while the Ministry of Justice says Reading, which shut in 2013, is on the market.

Government sources say the prison-building programme will cost more than £1bn.

Chancellor George Osborne said many prisons are outdated “relics from Victorian times” that stand on “prime real estate”. He said modern prisons that were better suited to the rehabilitation of inmates would be built instead.

New prisons are cheaper to run and easier to equip with the training and work facilities needed to help the rehabilitation of offenders.

In addition to the nine new jails, a prison is currently being built in Wrexham and expansions are taking place at HMP Stocken, in Rutland, and HMP Rye Hill, in Warwickshire.

More than 3,000 new homes could be built on the city centre sites of the old prisons, the government said.

Grade II-listed HMP Reading was built in 1844. The Treasury announcement of its sale comes just a month after Reading Borough Council was told by the Ministry of Justice that the prison would be retained “in case of contingencies”.

Other possible London candidates for closure include Wormwood Scrubs, Wandsworth and Brixton. Meanwhile, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool are old jails which are known to be very expensive to run.

The MoJ said Blundeston Prison in Suffolk is also up for sale, while contracts have already been exchanged for Bulwood Hall, in Essex. Both sites have been closed since 2013.

The MoJ said no decision has been made about future development on six other sites already closed – Wellingborough in Northamptonshire; Camp Hill on the Isle of Wight; Blantyre House, Kent; Downview in Surrey, and the former immigration removal centres in Dover and at Haslar in Hampshire. At present, they all remain available in case there is an urgent need for prison accommodation.

The MoJ also used its announcement to confirm that the lease on Dartmoor prison, in Devon, would not be renewed.