The Howard League for Penal Reform today has launched its new campaign, Take Action 2010, to stop the relentless rise in our prison population and to urge the political parties to place more investment in communities to prevent the underlying causes of crime.
Celebrities including Danniella Westbrook, Prunella Scales, Lady Sovereign and Emma Freud have already backed the campaign which will lobby prospective parliamentary candidates to think differently about the justice system in order to make it closer to communities and better geared to solving the problem of crime.
Supporters of Take Action 2010 can go online to register their support and upload pictures or videos of themselves holding up the campaign slogan less crime, safer communities, fewer people in prison.
The prison population has almost doubled since the early 1990s and as the figures demonstrate, this rapid increase is unprecedented in our recent history. Despite jailing more men, women and children than ever before, it seems to have done nothing to make people feel safer and indeed reoffending rates remain stubbornly high.
Year 1959 1969 1979 1989 1999 2009
Prison 26,623 34,667 42,220 48,500 64,771 84,711
population