Dame Anne Owers, a former chief inspector of prisons, has been appointed to lead a review into the prison capacity crisis.
Justice secretary and lord chancellor Shabana Mahmood has commissioned Owers to lead the review, which will consider “the reasons why prison supply and demand did not meet” and make recommendations to help future governments “avoid the cycle of repeated prison capacity crises”.
The review, which is expected to report back in three months’ time, will focus on strategic supply and demand choices; structures and early warning signs; and lessons for future governments.
This will include considering the extent to which the structures in place to monitor and manage prison capacity were sufficient to enable decisions to be made about capacity, and what action or structures could help future governments avoid the cycle of repeated prison capacity crises, according to the terms of reference.
Prisons minister James Timpson said Owers’ “extensive knowledge of the criminal justice system means that this review will be conducted to the highest standards”.
Owers was HM chief inspector of prisons between 2001 and 2010 and chaired a review of prisons in Northern Ireland from 2010-2011. More recently, she was the first non-executive national chair of the Independent Monitoring Boards, which provide statutory, independent oversight, monitoring the treatment and care of prisoners and detainees, from 2019-2023.
Her previous roles also include chair of the Independent Police Complaints Commission (now the Independent Office for Police Conduct), director of law reform charity Justice, and non-executive director of the Criminal Cases Review Commission. She was also a member of the advisory group to the 2017 Lammy review of the treatment of, and outcomes for black, Asian and ethnic minority individuals in the Criminal Justice System.
Owers will be supported by a dedicated secretariat team, with the civil servants supporting the review drawn from areas unrelated to prison capacity matters. Former lord chancellors and prison ministers will also be asked to contribute to the review.
Timpson said the review is part of the government's "plan to ensure we are never again in a position where we have more prisoners than prison places".
Within a week of coming into power, the Labour government took emergency measures to address overcrowding in the UK's prisons, including allowing the release of some categories of prisoner after they have served just 40% of their sentence. It made this decision after the Sunak administration opted to ignore pleas from the Prison Governors' Association and police chiefs to do this ahead of last year’s 4 July general election.
In October, the government appointed former Conservative justice secretary David Gauke to lead an independent review of sentencing which will look at how to make the justice system more sustainable. It will also report back this spring.
In December, the government published a 10-year Prison Capacity Strategy, setting out how it will go about building 14,000 prison places to increase the capacity of the prison estate and reforming the planning system to reduce delays to prison builds.