Conservative MP and former policing minister Chris Philp has said he would like to see the government using rapid deployment cells to house prisoners instead of the policy of early release.
Speaking to GB News, Chris Philp said: “I think in fairness, it’s worth pointing out that the last government did build an extra 13,000 prison places during its time in office, and there’s another 6000 that are going to be coming online by the end of next year.
“But clearly this is a concerning situation. It is up to the Labour ministers, the Labour Government to manage through this.
“There are things I would like to see them doing. For example, there are rapid deployment cells, RDCs, which, as the name implies, can be very quickly put into use.
“They’re essentially prefabricated cell units that can get dropped inside the secure perimeter of existing prisons: that exists as an option.
“I am concerned about this early release scheme, due to come into force on September 10th, that will see large and very large numbers of prisoners, criminals, released early.
“I’m concerned that some of those released are going to be dangerous, pose a threat to the public, and I don’t think it needs to be done on the scale that is being proposed.
“[The extra 6000 places] are net extra places. And in fact, during last year, every week, there were about 100 net additional prison places created by the previous Justice Secretary Alex Chalk.
“So they were bringing on 100 more places each week than were being retired or withdrawn for refurbishment.
“So I think the solution to this is more prison places. And in the very short term, these rapid deployment cells, RDCs, are what I would like to see being used.
“13,000 additional prison places were built. We do also have record numbers of police officers, and last year, they successfully prosecuted 30,000 more criminals than the year before, which does obviously mean there are more people in prison, because more criminals are getting caught.
“And that’s why building these new prisons is so important. And clearly that’s partly a medium term project. It takes time to build a new prison.
“But you’ve got these rapid deployment cells that can be used, much, much more quickly. And that is why I would like to see the government doing as well.”
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