Explainer-in-brief: Behind Dominic Raab’s jail drives
Dominic Raab is under the spotlight – again. After facing complaints of bullying from senior civil servants, he’s now accused of having led a failed prisons policy as Secretary for Justice. It emerged this week that prisons are so full that the Justice Department had to ask to use 400 police cells for inmates.
Raab tried to make several changes to the system. He suggested prisoners should be hired by companies with staff shortages, a progressive stance that was welcomed by campaigners and experts.
But he also pushed for changes to the parole system without giving enough notice to the Parole Board, according to officials. The Board is responsible for the decision of releasing specific categories of offenders.
When in post, Raab announced plans to create 20,000 additional prison places by 2025 to fight the overcrowding plaguing British prisons. That’s starting to look like, perhaps, a fairly optimistic goal.