The decision of the Government to increase the number of prison places to 100,000 is a tacit admission that the criminal justice policy of all British governments for the past half-century has been based upon lies and deceptions.

The consistent failure to immobilise criminals properly has been a wicked and sanctimonious betrayal of the working class by middle-class intellectuals, who have dressed up a refusal to spend tax money on the preservation of law and order, especially in poor areas, as compassion and understanding for the working class. It is true that most criminals are working class; but it is also true that most victims, always much more numerous than criminals, are working class. By indulging in anti-prison propaganda, middle-class intellectuals have demonstrated what they really thought deep down about the working class: that is it inherently and ex officio criminal.

We often hear that Britain locks up more people than any other country in Europe, or that our criminal justice is uniquely punitive. A moment's reflection will demonstrate that these claims, heard on the lips of some of our senior judges, is fatuous in the extreme. If we imprisoned people at the same rate per crimes committed as the Spanish, we would have between 350,000 and 400,000 prisoners, not the paltry 80,000 that we do have.

Again, it is often pointed out that the recidivism rate of prisoners serving short-term prison sentences is 70 per cent (actually, this is the reconviction rate: given the low level of detection, the reoffending rate is probably nearer 100 per cent). But this is an argument for drastically lengthened prison sentences, not for leniency: and indeed there is evidence that the recidivism rate is proportional to the length of sentence served.

Moreover, the recidivism rate of non-custodial community sentences is more or less the same as with short term-prison sentences, but with this difference: that while they are in prison, prisoners cannot commit crimes against the general public. It is easy to demonstrate that millions of crimes a year are committed by people already serving community sentences; thus failure to imprison properly is one of the main causes of crime in this now deeply criminalised country.

If the Government believed that imprisonment did not achieve anything, there would be no case to increase prison spaces by so much as a single cell. But it knows different: and in acknowledging this, despite the concerted efforts of the Home Office and academic criminologists to throw up smokescreens, it is acknowledging that all previous policy has been — well, criminal actually.

Theodore Dalrymple is a former prison doctor

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