The Reality of the Prison Expansion Project
As prisons all over the country are crumbling, the government implement a mass building exercise to expand the total population held captive by the state by a further 20,000 humans. When levels of imprisonment in Britain are already the highest in western Europe, this drive for the ability to contain so many more souls exemplifies the fear of the rulers that the citizens could rise-up, rather than suffer further under this failed capitalist system with an economy which works only for the rich. With a budget of over £4billion, prison building is the second largest expenditure program in government.
For someone who has been held captive through imprisonment in England since 2007, the deterioration of the environment I am forced to live within has gone beyond inhumane. Conditions have fallen to standards last seen 30-years ago, before the major uprisings by prisoners (referred to as riots by the authorities and their mouth-pieces with the largest one most commonly known having taken place at what was then called Strangeways) forced improvements. All over the country, these tensions are once again boiling-over, but the media refuse to acknowledge the reality of the resistance occurring, instead preferring to allow the brutal retaliations by the state to prisoners being unwilling to endure any more to remain hidden behind the walls. Suicides occur daily, but the dehumanisation and othering of us has been so effective that nobody cares. The apathy of the public is exactly what enables this, but as concepts such as Joint Enterprise continue to bring even greater numbers into the sphere of the injustice system, it is no longer possible to remain ignorant to the realities of what public funds are being spent on.
As natural resources are depleted and the need for the workers to extract them is exhausted, the elite must find a purpose for us which enables control to be sustained. With the knowledge that their warmongering invasions across the middle-east has destabilised the region, as well as their interferences to the smooth running of so-called third world countries, not to mention the impending doom of climate change all causing millions of the populus to seek refuge within this island, what better way to benefit from our existence than to exploit us like a lump of coal and plan to streamline the bodies of all who fall into their ever widening net in to the factories of despair which are prisons.
Chances for any real improvement to the rat and cockroach infested prison system have been totally diminished by the funds required for this being allocated for new prisons. The fact that even the relatively newer prisons such as those which only opened in the 1990s including HMP Whitemoor which is suffering from a rodent infestation, or HMP Woodhill which has severe subsidence causing a building to be uninhabitable in case it collapses, evidences the futility of attempting to build out of the overcrowding problem. The expansion of the prison industrial complex does not end once the building is completed, the perpetual cost of operating these human warehouses and maintaining the processes which turns people into commodities through the injustice system of oppression are continual. This includes the police who arrest us, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) who advance the case against us on behalf of the state, the judges who enable the parameters of the criminal trial to function in accordance with the biased laws passed by government as well as passing sentence against us, the security companies (G4S, Serco, etc) who transport us from court cells to prison cells, the probation service who determine restrictions to be applied upon us once released, the parole board who decide using their crystal ball when we are safe to release, the maintenance companies (like failed Carillion) who take millions in return for continuing to allow the vermin infestations and buildings to crumble, the catering companies who dream-up the recipes for the slop we are served, and even the defence solicitors and barristers who provide a veneer of legitimacy to this state system designed to oppress and control the masses all benefit from this invidious economic model.
Statistics show that the parole board is increasingly more difficult to be overcome for parole to be attained by the thousands of us inflicted with so-called indeterminate sentences, such as the abolished 2-strike or IPP, or the severely overused Life Sentence, with Britain imposing more of these than anywhere else in western Europe. The probation rate of recalling convicts to prison, especially for minor and often insignificant so-called breaches of licence conditions such as being a few minutes late to an appointment, have spiralled out-of-control resulting in thousands of people deemed to present no risk to the public filling prison cells at a cost of around £50,000 each per year to the taxpayer. Even the remand population of those people who are supposedly innocent until ‘proven’ guilty has sky-rocketed with some 15,000 humans imprisoned awaiting a trial that may never even come, some 150 of these having been remanded in-excess of 5-years. When only 6% of prisoners have been convicted of violence, who is really being protected by this mass imprisonment and what is the real ideology behind this prison building agenda?
The structure of these new mega prisons prohibit humane treatment by design, and mistreatment does not produce rehabilitation. Astutely put by Kate Eves – Chair of Inquiry into abuses at a UK detention centre; “Places of detention are the hidden spaces in our society. There is no higher role for the state than as a guardian of those who are detained and in its care.” She rejected the narrative that abuses exposed were primarily the result of the behaviour of a small minority of staff, which amounted in many instances to torture; it is a culture which prevails amongst those empowered over us by the state yet little objection to the expenses incurred in this expansion project, which could be better spent on building new schools or hospitals for example, can be seen.
As the laws preventing public opposition come into force, society itself is being seen more like the prison that life under capitalism is. Be exploited and remain silent, or face increased restrictions upon your liberties is the message between the lines. Silence did not prevent this slide into fascism, or the clawing-away of human rights which were designed to be the rights of all. The CCTV cameras and tracking of all electronic devices were supposed to be ‘safety measures’, now they make possible the enforcement of the expansive and oppressive agenda of the state. Hoping this will be any better once the Tories are finally out is a myth, Kier Starmer received his knighthood for his role as the director of the CPS where he facilitated increased levels of imprisonment, so is already well prepared for the job as the next Prime Minister of Britain.
Knowing what is to come, what do you do next…
Written by Kevan Thakrar
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As well as suffering from a miscarriage of justice having been convicted under the controversial and discredited legal doctrine of joint enterprise, Kev is one of the 50-men within English prisons to be detained within the Close Supervision Centre (CSC) system under Rule 46 of the Prison Rules 1999. When the Segregation Units disappear people, the CSC is where they end-up. This is the front-line in the battle against state violence where you must resist or capitulate, and Kev more than any other continues in the struggle as a champion of the people. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture has raised the conditions of his detention with the government and he has taken a judicial review of the policy of allowing indefinite segregation which enables his ongoing solitary confinement, the appeal for which is due to be heard at the Court of Appeal on the 3rd and 4th of March 2026.
Please help combat his isolation and help him endure the state inflicted torture by writing to him at:
KEVAN THAKRAR A4907AE
HMP Whitemoor
Longhill Road
March
PE15 0PR
Cards can be sent to him via WWW.FUNKYPIDGEON.COM and it is also possible to email Kev using WWW.EMAILAPRISONER.COM.
Read more from and about Kev on WWW.JUSTICEFORKEVAN.ORG.
