In today’s Independent Dominic Lawson furthers the progressive case for imprisonment which he made at our conference, “Britain behind bars: the struggle for law and order.” http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/dominic_lawson/article3177029.ece As he points out, imprisonment is currently out of favour with many judges.

The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Phillips, has declared that too many people are being sent to prison, and that the system cannot cope. "We can not go on like this"

 This reluctance to pass custodial sentences reflects the lack of capacity in the UK’s prison system. As Dominic argues, there is something troubling with the notion of judges meting out punishment in accordance with current pressures on prison as opposed to basing sentencing on a detached interpretation of the law.

To refrain from giving a custodial sentence on grounds which have nothing to do with the law is not justice but hotel management

 The root cause of this problem lies ultimately with the government’s thinking on crime and punishment. As the column continues:

The government has decided to maintain the approach to dealing with crime pioneered by Mr Michael Howard – "Prison works" – while cutting back on the prison building programme which the Conservatives had planned.

 To alleviate this tension the government must either drop its “prison works” rhetoric or honour it in penal policy. The latter is often viewed as reactionary, but Dominic shows that the distributional impact of funding such a policy means that a progressive case can be made for expanding prison places.

 Crime and its costs fall disproportionately – massively so – on the poorer areas of our towns and cities. Given the undeniable fact that when a criminal is in jail he cannot continue to attack his community, it is clear that an increase in prison spaces is the most dramatic way in which the better off in society can pay to make the lives of the least-well-off more bearable.