“We really started from first principles,” says Jaimie Johnston, director of Bryden Wood. It’s our responsibility to rehabilitate you” “The Scandinavian mindset is that if you are in prison, that’s our fault as a society. The visitor centre promises to be an airy timber-lined hall more akin to an Ikea cafe. Claiming to be the product of “the largest research project of its kind”, the designs have done away with Victorian-style gallery cell blocks, removed the bars from windows, and arranged the cells in smaller groups around landscaped courtyards. It is against this bleak backdrop that the Ministry of Justice has allowed architects Bryden Wood to promote their plans for HMP Wellingborough, a £253m 1,600-capacity prison currently under construction in Northamptonshire. In a damning indictment of the levels of squalor, a Dutch court recently refused to extradite a prisoner to England on the grounds that the conditions awaiting him would be “inhumane and degrading”. Recent inspections report filthy cells, stinking unscreened toilets, broken windows, exposed wiring and heaps of rubbish infested with vermin. Deaths have risen by 20% in less than a year. Jails are beset by chronic overcrowding, drug use, mental illness and self-harm. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Imagesīoris Johnson’s recent announcement of 10,000 extra prison places comes at a time when our penal system is on its knees, with services slashed to the bone after years of cuts. ‘£36,000 per prisoner per year’ … HMP Berwyn.
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