Some crimes are so serious and some criminals so dangerous that prison is the only possible disposal; nobody disputes that. Even so, why have prison numbers burgeoned by nearly 40 per cent since 1997 to a level where we now imprison more per 100,000 of population than any other country in Europe? Where we have more lifers than Russia? How has it come to this?
An answer can be found in Cutting Crime: The Case for Reinvestment, a report by the House of Commons Justice Select Committee. It concluded that the incessant growth in the prison population was caused by