Tagging for 10-15 year olds were introduced in 1997 as it was seen that prison was too harsh a sentence for a youth offender. New indefinite sentences were introduced by David Blunkett for dangerous and violent offenders and by 2006 Tony Blair boasted that more than 1,000 offenders have been locked up without a fixed release date under the new breed of 'public protection sentences'. Labour also announced plans to build 3 'super prisons' each holding 2,500 offenders. This would take prison population to 96,000 by 2014 (http://www.howardleague.org).
In 1993, Home Secretary Michael Howard produced his famous 'Prison works' speech and this had an immediate impact on sentencing. Statistics show that in 1992 there were more than 20,000 suspended sentences handed out by the courts and this had collapsed to less than 4,000 in 1993. The new law 'two strikes and you're out' was introduced and the population in prisons started to grow further. This had a huge impact on the prison population and overcrowding was starting to become an issue. England and Wales are currently at a record high with 85,241 prisoners. 8,258 of these prisoners are male and the remaining 3,983 are female (www.gov.uk). There are more people being sent to prison than any other Western and Southern European country, current statistics show that for every 100,000 people, 151 of them are jailed. This is 44% more than Germany and 52% more than France (www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk). This is a 90% increase since 1993. Between 1995 and 2002, the courts sentenced an increasing number of offenders to prison. It should also be noted that crime rates fell by 43% between 1997 and 2010 with violent crimes falling by 42% whilst under the new government (www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk). Is this just coincidence or because of Michael Howard's speech? .
An article from the guardian challenges the view of this population increase and questions the link between prison population and falling crime rates.
