BUILD MORE PRISONS OR RELEASE PRISONERS EARLIER?
The prison capacity crisis, the cost to taxpayers and the question of why Britain is not making better use of the prisons it already has
CATCH A THIEF UK NATIONAL JUSTICE INVESTIGATION PART 5 OF 12
Britain's prison system faces a difficult question: should the Government continue building new prisons, release more prisoners earlier, or find a better way to use the prison estate it already owns and operates?
It is a debate that goes beyond prison numbers. It involves public safety, victims, rehabilitation, overcrowding, staff shortages, the cost to taxpayers and the ability of the justice system to manage offenders both inside and outside prison.
The Government has committed to delivering 14,000 additional prison places by 2031. It says expanding the estate is essential to creating a more sustainable system. But with construction projects taking years, costs rising and pressure continuing across the estate, one question deserves closer examination:
Before spending billions on new prison capacity, has the Government fully explored what could be recovered from the prison estate it already has?
And, in particular, what about the prisons that have closed?
1. A system struggling to keep pace
Prison capacity is not simply a matter of counting the number of cells in the country. A cell must be safe, fit for purpose, properly maintained and supported by enough staff to operate it.
The Ministry of Justice's figures for 30 June 2026 recorded a prison population of 85,858 against an operational capacity of 89,120 in England and Wales. On paper, that suggests a gap between the number of people in prison and the number of places available.
But national figures can disguise significant pressures within individual establishments. Not every place is interchangeable. A prison designed for a particular security category, population or specialist purpose cannot necessarily accommodate someone from a different category.
The system also needs spare capacity to manage transfers, emergencies, maintenance and changes in demand.
The pressure is reflected in overcrowding. Government figures show that 23.9% of prisoners were held in crowded accommodation during 2025–26.
This is not simply an administrative problem. Overcrowded prisons can place additional pressure on staff, increase tensions and make it harder to deliver education, work and rehabilitation.
The Chief Inspector of Prisons warned in September 2026 that the system remained extremely fragile, with overcrowding continuing to affect living conditions, safety and opportunities for purposeful activity.
The question is not just how many prisoners can be accommodated. It is whether the prison system can operate safely and effectively at the numbers it is being asked to hold.
2. The Government's plan: 14,000 additional places
The Government's strategy is to increase capacity through a combination of new prisons, expansions, refurbishment and temporary accommodation.
According to HM Prison and Probation Service's 2025–26 annual report, approximately 3,100 additional places were delivered between July 2024 and 31 March 2026.
This included:
- 1,468 places at HMP Millsike, which opened in April 2025.
- 245 places through a new houseblock at HMP Fosse Way in December 2025.
- 110 places at HMP Cookham Wood in February 2026.
Further projects are planned or under way, including HMP Highpoint and HMP Welland Oaks, alongside additional houseblocks and other capacity projects.
The Government says it expects to meet its commitment to provide 14,000 additional places by 2031.
However, prison construction is a major infrastructure undertaking. Land, planning permission, contractors, materials, security requirements, utilities and staffing all affect delivery.
The Government's own annual report acknowledges that prison expansion has faced difficult market conditions, rising construction costs and the collapse of a major contractor in 2024.
New prisons may be necessary, particularly where existing buildings cannot provide safe or suitable accommodation. But new construction is not a quick solution to an immediate capacity problem.
That brings us to another question: what capacity has already been lost?
3. The empty prison question: why build from scratch before examining what we already have?
One of the most important issues in this debate is the number of prison places that are unavailable because of closures, dilapidation and maintenance.
It is important to distinguish between an empty prison and a prison cell that is temporarily unavailable. They are not the same thing. Some buildings may be beyond economic repair, while others may be capable of returning to service following substantial work.
Nevertheless, the figures raise legitimate questions.
In a parliamentary answer published on 13 October 2026, the Ministry of Justice confirmed that 3,398 prison places were out of use as at 14 September 2026.
The Government said there was no single date by which all these places would return to operational use because different cells required different work.
The largest category 1,867 places was associated with the Fire Safety Improvement Programme.
This matters. It demonstrates that some capacity is unavailable not because there is no prison building, but because the buildings cannot currently be used safely.
The Government has a responsibility to address those problems. Fire safety improvements, structural repairs and essential maintenance are not optional extras. They are part of providing a safe prison system.
But the public is entitled to ask how quickly this lost capacity can be recovered, what it will cost and whether the work is being prioritised effectively.
The National Audit Office has previously highlighted the deterioration of the prison estate and the consequences of underinvestment in maintenance. Its work has also raised concerns that some prisons which performed well were closed as part of changes to the estate, while replacement capacity had not yet matched what was lost.
This raises a question that should be answered openly: how many prison places could be brought back into use if the Government made restoring existing buildings a national priority?
4. HMP Dartmoor: a prison closed, but still costing taxpayers
Perhaps the clearest example of the difficulties surrounding unused prison capacity is HMP Dartmoor.
The prison has been temporarily closed since August 2024 following the detection of elevated radon gas.
The Government has confirmed that it is continuing to assess whether the site can safely reopen. Specialist suppliers, radon mitigation experts, the UK Health Security Agency and independent advisers have been involved in examining the options.
The decision will depend on whether the site can be made safe and whether the necessary work represents value for money.
But there is another aspect to this story.
A House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report published in January 2026 highlighted that the Government was spending approximately £4 million a year on rent, rates and security for a prison it could not use.
The report also criticised the way the lease had been negotiated. The Government had renewed the lease in March 2022 despite already knowing about radon concerns, and the lease arrangements meant it could not terminate the agreement until 2033.
Dartmoor is not a straightforward case of simply unlocking the gates and putting prisoners back inside. Health and safety must come first.
However, it is reasonable to ask how a prison with more than 600 places came to be unavailable for such a prolonged period, what the realistic cost of reopening would be and when the public can expect a final decision.
If reopening is not viable, the Government should explain why. If it is viable, the public should be told what the plan and timetable are.
Paying millions of pounds each year for a facility that cannot be used is not a sustainable answer.
5. Could other closed prisons be reopened?
Dartmoor is one example, but the wider question is whether the Government has a complete and transparent picture of every prison that has closed, been mothballed or lost significant capacity.
Not every former prison will be suitable for reopening.
Some buildings may have serious structural problems. Others may no longer meet modern standards for security, fire safety, healthcare or prisoner accommodation. Some may have been sold, repurposed or become too expensive to restore.
There may also be practical issues involving staffing, location and the availability of services.
A prison building without enough trained staff is not a functioning prison.
Nevertheless, these are reasons to conduct a proper assessment, not reasons to avoid asking the question.
A national prison-estate audit should establish:
- Which prisons have closed or remain unused?
- Which sites are still owned or leased by the Government?
- Which could realistically reopen within six, twelve or twenty-four months?
- What refurbishment, security and safety work would be required?
- How much would reopening each site cost?
- How many usable places could each site provide?
- What staffing levels and operational costs would be needed?
- Which sites are no longer viable, and why?
The public should be able to compare the cost of restoring an existing facility with the cost and timescale of building a new one.
There may be good reasons to build new prisons. But those decisions should be supported by transparent evidence showing that suitable existing capacity has not been overlooked.
The question is not whether every closed prison should reopen. It is whether the Government can demonstrate that it has properly examined every realistic option.
6. Is early release becoming a substitute for capacity?
The prison population has been managed through a combination of emergency measures, changes to release arrangements and plans to expand the estate.
From 1 October 2026, eligible prisoners serving standard determinate sentences moved to the new Progression Model. Under the arrangements, the automatic release point for eligible prisoners changed from 40% to 33% of the sentence, while the release point for eligible prisoners serving SDS+ sentences changed from 66% to 50%.
Sentence lengths remain unchanged, but eligible prisoners spend a greater proportion of their sentence in the community under supervision.
The Government argues that changes to sentencing and release arrangements are part of a longer-term approach to reducing pressure on prison capacity.
However, earlier release does not remove the need to manage risk. It changes where and how that responsibility is carried out.
People released from prison may be subject to licence conditions, probation supervision, electronic monitoring and other restrictions. These arrangements require adequate staffing, reliable technology, suitable accommodation and effective communication between agencies.
Our previous investigations have examined concerns about recall, probation workloads and electronic monitoring.
The question raised by those findings is whether the wider system has enough capacity to manage the consequences of releasing more prisoners into the community.
Reducing pressure inside prisons must not simply transfer an unmanageable burden to probation services, victims or the public.
7. The cost to taxpayers: building, restoring or managing the consequences?
There is no simple price tag attached to prison capacity.
Building a new prison involves land, construction, security systems, infrastructure and long-term operating costs. Refurbishing an old prison can also be expensive, particularly if major structural or safety improvements are needed.
And keeping a prison open requires much more than maintaining the building. It needs prison officers, healthcare staff, education provision, maintenance teams, transport, food, utilities and security.
The Government must therefore compare the full lifetime cost of each option.
There is also a cost to doing nothing.
If the system relies too heavily on emergency release arrangements, it must still fund probation supervision, electronic monitoring, accommodation and the services needed to manage offenders in the community.
If prisoners are released without effective rehabilitation or support, further offending and recall can create additional pressure and expense.
The real test should be value for money, not simply the number of places announced in a press release.
Taxpayers deserve to know whether money is being spent on the most effective combination of new construction, restoring existing capacity, maintaining current prisons and reducing reoffending.
8. More cells do not automatically mean a better prison system
There is a danger in treating the prison crisis as a building programme alone.
A new prison can provide modern accommodation, better security and improved facilities. But it cannot, by itself, solve staff shortages, drug supply, violence, poor rehabilitation or inadequate preparation for release.
A prison system that simply holds more people without addressing the reasons many return to custody risks repeating the same cycle.
Rehabilitation, education, employment skills, addiction support and appropriate resettlement arrangements all matter.
Prison should protect the public and hold offenders accountable. It should also reduce the likelihood that people will commit further offences when they are released.
The two responsibilities should not be treated as opposites.
Nor should prison capacity be planned in isolation from probation. If more people are to serve a greater proportion of their sentence in the community, the services supervising them must have the resources and ability to do that safely.
9. What should happen next?
There is no credible single answer to the prison capacity crisis.
Building new prisons may be necessary. Restoring suitable existing buildings may provide capacity sooner in some cases. Maintaining current facilities is essential. Sentencing and release arrangements may also need to change.
But these decisions should be based on evidence, not short-term political pressure.
A more transparent approach would include:
A full prison-estate audit. Publish the status, ownership, condition and potential of every closed or substantially unused prison.
A recovery timetable. Identify which currently unavailable places can be restored, how much the work will cost and when they could safely return to use.
A public comparison of costs. Set out the lifetime cost of reopening existing sites against building new ones, including staffing and ongoing operation.
A realistic capacity forecast. Explain how projected prison numbers, sentencing changes and recall rates will affect demand over the coming years.
Investment in people as well as buildings. Ensure that prison staffing, probation, rehabilitation and electronic monitoring can support the planned system.
Proper scrutiny. Publish progress and explain delays, changes in cost and decisions to abandon or proceed with projects.
The public should not have to choose between safe prisons and responsible spending. The Government has a duty to deliver both.
10. The verdict: build, restore or rethink?
The prison crisis did not develop overnight, and it will not be solved overnight.
There are strong arguments for building new prisons where existing facilities cannot provide safe, modern accommodation. There are equally strong arguments for examining whether suitable closed or underused facilities could be restored before committing taxpayers to further construction.
The figures on unavailable places, the situation at Dartmoor and the wider history of prison-estate maintenance all raise questions that deserve proper answers.
But there is an important distinction: an empty building is not automatically a usable prison, just as an announcement of thousands of new places does not mean those places are ready to receive prisoners.
The Government must demonstrate that it is using the estate intelligently, planning for future demand and investing in the people and services needed to operate it.
And it must explain why taxpayers should fund new construction where existing capacity may still be recoverable.
Ultimately, the issue is not simply how many prison cells Britain can provide.
It is whether the justice system can protect the public, treat victims fairly, hold offenders accountable and reduce the chances of further crime without repeatedly relying on emergency measures.
Before building more prisons or releasing more prisoners, perhaps the first question should be: have we made the best possible use of what we already have?
ABOUT THIS INVESTIGATION
This is Part 5 of the Catch a Thief UK National Justice Investigation, examining prison capacity, early release, probation, electronic monitoring and the wider impact on public safety.
Previous instalments:
Further instalments will examine victims' rights, probation and industrial action, rehabilitation, repeat offending, community impact, early-release eligibility, the cost of the justice system and what the evidence tells us over time.
Catch a Thief UK Detect. Report. Deter. Recover.
SOURCES AND FURTHER READING
Figures and policy references are based on the published material available at the time of writing, 1 November 2026. Prison capacity and operational status can change. Figures relating to unavailable places refer to places out of use, not necessarily complete or permanently closed prisons.
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