I agree with everything you’ve said, leaving out the prison meals. I have some more reading to do on the prisons building programme, particularly the move towards PFIs in running prisons, which I suspect plays a part here. Mandelson denies any corporate involvement in his sudden about face with the Digital Economy Bill, but New Labour has from the start been about total corporate appeasement – Iraq, ID cards, schools, transport you name it. I’m not suggesting the thousands of new offences have been brought about to justify an expansion in private prison arrangements, I’m sure much of it is down to laziness and an eagerness for quick fix solutions, but it certainly must be a partial outcome of the intrusion of marketisation into yet another public service.

Why not improve rehabilitation? I wish I knew.

How about the government uses some of this money in a bid to improve rehabilitation and education schemes in prison, giving prisoners a better chance of being employed when they are released. I would particularly like to see a focus on rehabilitation for young offenders. Having worked with them both in and out of prison i know how important this is.

Through rehabilitating offenders, not only will local communities improve from both lower crime figures and more trained workers but policing costs will be lowered.

finally i would like to point out that the government could save money through cutting money for prison meals. Per head in january 2008 each meal for a prisoner cost anything between 62p and £1.68 (daily express). This is compared with around 50p for those in hospital and as little as 40p for school children. Through lowering the cost of meals in prisons, the government would be able to save £100,000′s a year if not more!