Operation Early Dawn, the government’s latest plan to tackle prison overcrowding, sounds almost like a new beginning, a fresh start. But I imagine that’s not how it feels for people inside prison. Not for the ones in the cells, nor the officers unlocking them.
With male prisons in England at more than 99% capacity, this emergency measure to tackle overcrowding is urgent and necessary. It’s hard to see what other options the government has. Because an overcrowded prison is a dangerous one.
An overcrowded prison is one where lifers are housed with short-termers, young offenders with adults, the remanded with the sentenced, and sex offenders with the general population. An overcrowded prison houses acutely mentally ill prisoners on busy, chaotic residential wings because there are no cells available in healthcare. Violent prisoners who have seriously assaulted others remain with the general population because there is no space in the segregation unit.
An overcrowded prison is one where the staff are under increasing pressure to “make it work”, to find space where there is none. Cells that should be out of order are designated habitable. Cells with smashed windows and broken beds and toilets that don’t flush. Cells with bloodstains on the walls.........