Why 'John Lewis jails' are better for corporations than for prisoners

A thinktank wants to cut crime with 'John Lewis jails', but the plan to get prisoners working looks more like a new opportunity for giant corporations

Zoe Williams
The Guardian, Saturday 5 November 2011

Yesterday afternoon, it was announced that the prison population has hit its all-time high: at 87,749, it is 76 higher than the previous record set at the start of last month. They promised us a rehabilitation revolution. When Ken Clarke gruffly took the stage to spell out the government's prison policy, in June last year, he said reoffending had to be brought down; he said prison sentences didn't necessarily work; he talked about the "bang em up" culture, and how it produced more hardened criminals; he hinted at sentencing reform, and alternatives to custody. The overwhelming impression was that with this man in charge, there would be fewer people in prison.

There followed what commentators call "disarray": David Cameron backed Clarke, at the same time insisting he believed in short sentences – which two positions are basically opposite (and not in a sophisticated way). Michael Howard piled in; backbenchers were displeased. The prison population grew. It has now topped 87,000 prisoners for 12 weeks in a row. Maximum capacity is 89,000. Relations between prisoners and staff are already deteriorating. One professional wondered, off the record, if "this is the year it's all going to kick off".

Last week, Clarke appeared before a select committee, and said he was against mandatory sentencing for juniors carrying knives, and against three-strikes-and-you're-out rules on principle, because judges always found a way to get round them. But later last week, Nick Herbert, the minister for policing and criminal justice, announced there would be mandatory sentences for knife crimes, juvenile or not.

In April, Birmingham became the first prison in the UK to move from public to private hands. At the beginning of this week, the first tender document went out for nine other prisons; bids are invited from the public and private sectors. The companies bidding will be the same vast corporations that have hoovered up contracts elsewhere in the public sector: Capita, G4S, A4E, Serco, Sedexo. There are "new kids on the block", but they aren't exactly kids – they're companies of a similar size, from elsewhere in the world: Amey, Geo. What is certain, even at this early stage in the bidding process (where companies are selected for their "qualification" to bid), is that the contracts are too large to be bid for by social enterprise organisations.

To read more, click here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2011/nov/05/rehab-revolution-uk-prisons