TORIES FAIL TO UNDERSTAND PRISONS CRISIS - DAVID HEATH

4.34.34pm GMT Tue 4th Mar 2008

Commenting on Conservative plans for the prison system announced today, Liberal Democrat Shadow Justice Secretary, David Heath said:

"The Tories spend months working on a prisons policy and come up with three ideas that have already been thought of by someone else.

The Liberal Democrats have long argued for fixed term sentences, with a maximum and minimum tariff announced by a judge in an open court, and for the creation of a Victims' Compensation Fund paid for by prisoners doing productive work within our prison system.

The Tories share their final idea, that we can somehow build our way out of the prison overcrowding crisis, with the Government, who have already started the process.

This represents a fundamental misunderstanding based on the naïve assumption that 100,000 places will be enough. It will not if we continue to send ever increasing amounts of people to prison.

There is no evidence that our extremely high incarceration rates are doing any good. Crime rates in Britain are similar to those in Denmark and yet our rate of incarceration is twice as high."