Islington Tribune - News: Tory ‘for sale’ sign on prison

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Islington Tribune - by TOM FOOT
Published: 7 March 2008

Tory ‘for sale’ sign on prison

PLANS to transform Pentonville into luxury flats and build a super prisons on the outskirts of London were unveiled by the Conservative Party leader on Monday.
David Cameron told the Commons Britain’s badly designed inner-city prison sites should be sold off to developers. The Tories’ 108-page green paper, called Prison With A Purpose report, targets the Victorian jail as “offering potential for multi-storey mixed commercial and residential development”.
It was condemned last year by the Prison Reform Trust that reported it as “unfit for human inhabitation”. But Pat Haynes, a former Islington Labour councillor who retired from the prison board in 2006 after 30 years’ service, said: “Inner-London needs prisons because that is where most of the prisoners come from.
The answer is not to move prisons out to the edges of London, away from prisoners’ families. That is very important. If you want to get the population down you need to be more progressive.
The prison population is getting out of control. It is really deplorable.”
The new super prisons would make a radical departure from the classic Pentonville layout, which became a model for British prisons when it was built.
Despite some refurbishment, the original four cell blocks are as they were when the prison opened in 1842. The prisoners would be held in cells in long galleries, radiating from a central point.
Former Pentonville governor Robert Duncan said he was sceptical of the new designs.
He said: “It makes for an intimate atmosphere because it’s open plan. “Staff felt safe and a whistle was always very effective. You have got good access to the prisoners.”
Current governor Nick Leader said: “I am confident recent improvements are sustainable and will continue to be built upon. We hope to agree a site development plan that will help provide the foundations required for a busy complex prison.”

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