Although three new prisons have opened in the past four years – adding approximately 5,000 more places – further expansion to existing prisons has been delayed by a major supplier going into administration, according to the Prison Reform Trust.
Pia Sinha of the Prison Reform Trust told BBC Verify: “Successive governments have found it difficult to increase prison capacity because new prisons take years to plan and build, often facing planning hurdles and local opposition.”
The Labour government has pledged to build 14,000 new prison places by 2031. The MoJ told BBC Verify that it had delivered about 3,200 places as of July.
However, it has not said how many prison cells have been taken out of use so we cannot say whether there has been a net gain or loss of spaces.
Analysts argue that without a major change in thinking about the appropriateness of prison as punishment, or a significant long-term increase in prison building, the system in England and Wales will remain close to capacity.
And that means governments will continue to be under pressure to implement early release schemes to avert a capacity crisis.
