New 1,500-place prison opens amid bid to tackle jail overcrowding
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said “we simply cannot build our way out of the prisons capacity crisis” as she opened a new jail that will hold about 1,500 prisoners.
Category C prison HMP Millsike, which is the size of 39 football pitches, is the latest step towards the Government’s target to create 14,000 extra prison places by 2031.
The Yorkshire jail has been designed to cut crime, with 24 workshops and training facilities aimed at getting offenders back into work and away from crime when they are released, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said.
The opening comes as Ms Mahmood (pictured) re-enacted the use of police cells to hold prisoners as jail occupancy reached a six-month high.
Speaking at the opening of the jail, she said prisons were operating at more than 99% occupancy, despite thousands of prisoners being freed early in a bid to ease overcrowding since September last year.
Ms Mahmood said the system was on the “brink of collapse” nine months ago, facing running out of space entirely within weeks.
She said: “Had we not acted, the result would have been catastrophic. Our courts would have ground to a halt and the police would have been forced to stop arrests.
“We would have faced a total breakdown of law and order.”
The Secretary of State said HMP Millsike “sets the standard for the future because it is a prison designed to cut crime”.
She was shown round the complex, which will receive its first prisoners at the end of April.
As well as the cell blocks, she was shown some of the workshops which will enable 500 offenders at any time to train in skills such as cleaning, bricklaying, barbering and carpentry.
She said: “We must be honest about the challenges we face.
“While this new prison is necessary we simply cannot build our way out of the prisons capacity crisis.
“So, new prisons like Millsike must go alongside longer term sentencing reform.”
She said: “We must, and we will, punish offenders.
“But that punishment must encourage them to turn their backs on a life of crime. That is how we will cut crime, have fewer victims and ultimately make our streets safer.”
Ms Mahmood said the current sentencing review, led by former Tory minister David Gauke, is crucial to the strategy to manage prison numbers.
Asked by reporters about comments made by Mr Gauke about how the public may have to get used to lower sentences for serious offenders, she said: “Short sentence reform on its own isn’t going to be enough.
“We’re already over 99% capacity. We are filling prison places as fast as we can build them.
“And we know already we cannot build our way out of this crisis, even though we are also building at the same time.”
Ms Mahmood said she will be prepared to use “operation measures” again if the difficulties worsened but she said did not “wish to pull any further emergency levers”.
She said: “The intention is that, in the end, once we’ve got the sentencing review and future legislation, we actually have a prison system that’s no longer on the point of collapse.”
Ms Mahmood was also asked whether the talk of reduced sentences to cut prisoner numbers ran counter to a new campaign, supported by the parents of Sarah Everard, for tougher sentencing for serious violent and sexual criminals.
The Justice Secretary said it was an “important campaign” and added: “It’s not a question of who is right or wrong.
“It’s a question of making sure we have a prison system that ensures that dangerous offenders are locked up and makes sure that there are places for them to be locked up in.”
She said: “We have to make sure there is always a prison place available for people who are dangerous offenders and need to be locked up. And, on that I would have absolutely common cause with victims such as those involved in this campaign.”
HMP Millsike, which has been built next to the existing Category A Full Sutton Prison, in East Yorkshire, has been fitted with state-of-the art security technology to combat drugs, drones and phones, including barless windows, hundreds of CCTV cameras and X-ray body scanners to stop illicit supplies getting into prison.
The prison will be run by contractor Mitie Care and Custody, while education and training will be run by PeoplePlus.
Building the prison created 800 jobs and a further 600 jobs will be created from its operation, the MoJ said.
The new prison comes after the Government began the expansion of 700 places at HMP Highpoint in Suffolk earlier this month and a new 460-space houseblock was opened to prisoners at HMP Rye Hill in Northamptonshire.
The builds come amid a £2.3 billion investment to complete the builds, and £500 million to go towards building maintenance across the Prison and Probation Service.
MPs from the Public Accounts Committee warned earlier this month that plans to deliver the remaining 14,000 places by 2031 are “still fraught with risk and uncertainty”.
They also said that the maintenance funding is a “small proportion” of the £2.8 billion estimated to be needed to bring the prison estate into fair condition.
Copyright (c) PA Media Ltd. 2024, All Rights Reserved. Picture (c) Danny Lawon / PA.
