Press Story

'Our prisons are overcrowded and locking so many people up costs this country a fortune. More importantly, prison doesn't work for many offenders - because a lack of rehabiliation schemes in prisons mean they are more likely to reoffend on release. Well-designed alternatives to prison for less-serious offenders have been shown to work and they are much less costly.'

England and Wales have the second-highest imprisonment rate in western Europe, with 149 prisoners for every 100,000 people, compared to the European Union average of 102 per 100,000. The latest figures show that in December 2010 there were 85,227 people in prison in England and Wales, just 2,933 below the useable operational capacity of the prison estate. Our prisons are among the most overcrowded in the developed world: in 2008-09, an average of 20,452 prisoners were either doubled-up in cells designed for one or held three in a cell designed for two. This is almost a quarter of the total prison population.

IPPR has been conducting in-depth research into the offender population in the London Borough of Lewisham, using new data on those being released from prison and returning to live in Lewisham. This research shows that there are potentially very significant savings to the public purse if we reform the sentencing framework so that more people are given community sentences and fewer are sent to prison.

A total of 594 offenders were released into Lewisham in 2009/10 having served less than 12 months, at a cost to the state of £8.7 million, or an average of £14,710 per person.
241 people released into Lewisham served less than three months. Not sending those people to prison would have saved £1.3 million, or £5,590 on average per offender, in prison costs. If you still sent those who had committed violent offences from that group to prison, there would still be 194 fewer people going to prison, at a saving in prison costs of £1.1 million, or £5,655 on average per offender.
Reconviction rates from those given community sentences are 14 per cent lower than those released from custody, and a community sentence costs on average 12 times less than a prison sentence.

Note to editors

IPPR's report Redesigning Justice will be published in early 2011. It will use detailed new data on the offender population in Lewisham to demonstrate how a different approach to prisons and rehabilitation could save the taxpayer very significant sums of money.

Contact

Tim Finch, IPPR Director of Communications: 0207 7470 6110 / 07595 920 899 / t.finch@ippr.org