Tomorrow's Prisons: Designing the future prison estate

Article

With much of the prison estate far too old to meet modern needs, there is an urgent need for fresh thinking about what we do in our prisons - and how they should be designed to facilitate those objectives.

This project, of which this paper is the first output, aims to provide such new thinking by setting out a challenging but achievable agenda for change.

We see two alternative futures for the prison estate:

  • We can continue on our present course, expanding the estate by building ever larger prisons based on standard designs. This might seem like the politically safer course, but it is a highly costly one and will do little to address the challenges identified.
  • We can embrace an ambitious but practical agenda of prison modernisation, which would create a more diverse range of penal institutions that are smaller, locally rooted, specialised and focused on rehabilitating prisoners.

The report sets the scene for the second phase of the project, which will set out in detail what that alternative scenario could look like and how the political, financial and practical challenges to it can be overcome.

Related items

  1. The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, River Thames and Westminster Bridge

    Taxing choices: Taking the public’s temperature ahead of the budget

    The stakes for a government are rarely higher than at a budget. Every chancellor has dealt with this differently. Ken Clarke would draft his budget speech with cigars and whisky, Gordon Brown pored over every word in what officials called…
  2. Scottish parliament building at Holyrood and Calton Hill, Edinburgh

    Great expectations: Rejuvenating the national debate in Scotland

    Fresh IPPR Scotland polling shows that politicians must raise their game if next year’s election is a to be serious debate about the challenges facing Scotland and potential solutions. 
  3. A Black man in a bright orange high vis jacket and hard hat stands in the middle of a road holding a sign that says 'STOP - WORKS'

    Unfinished business: Redressing inequality in British policy and Black lives

    As conversations about race and equality continue to evolve, Black History Month remains a powerful invitation to pause, reflect, and recommit to progress.