Michael Gove’s promises in his first major speech on prisons to close down “ageing and ineffective” Victorian jails and to consider introducing an “earned release scheme” for studious inmates has won him widespread plaudits from penal reform groups.

The “new for old” scheme could see some of Britain’s most notorious inner city Victorian jails closed and their sites sold off to fund new prisons better built to design out the “dark corners” where bullying, drug dealing and violence take place.

The justice secretary firmly put north London’s Pentonville prison in the frame as a leading candidate for closure and sell-off under the policy, citing it as the most conspicuous example of failure within the prison estate.



He said a recent chief inspector’s report on the jail, which opened in 1842 and is supposed to hold 900 prisoners but now houses 1,300, found bloodstained walls, piles of rubbish and food waste, increasing levels of violence, and widespread drug taking.

He described Pentonville as “the most dramatic example of failure within the prison estate, but its problems, while more acute than anywhere else, are very far from unique”.

As well as Pentonville, the remainder of London’s major Victorian prisons, including Wandsworth prison in south London, Wormwood Scrubs in west London and Brixton in south London, are expected to be among candidates to be replaced.



“We have to consider closing down the ageing and ineffective Victorian prisons in our major cities, reducing the crowding and ending the inefficiences which blight the lives of everyone in them, and building new prisons which embody higher standards in every way they operate,” said Gove in a speech to the Prisoner Learning Alliance.

“The money which could be raised from selling off inner-city sites for development would be significant. It could be reinvested in a modern prison estate where prisoners do not have to share overcrowded accommodation, but also where the dark corners that facilitate bullying, drug-taking and violence could be increasingly designed out,” he said.

Gove’s prisons speech came in a week in which the chief inspector of prisons has described penal conditions in England and Wales as the worst for a decade and was notable for its complete change of tone from his predecessor, Chris Grayling, who repeatedly insisted there was no crisis in the prisons.

In the weeks since he took over from Grayling, Gove has tried to repair the government’s relationship with the legal profession, has further relaxed restrictions on prisoners being sent books, and confirmed the decision to drop an £80m plan to build Europe’s largest child jail.

One of Grayling’s harshest critics, Frances Crook of the Howard League for Penal Reform, described Gove as a “welcome breath of fresh air” but noted that the prison population was continuing to rise. He responded to her by saying that a debate over the size of the prison population and over sentencing policy was one for the future.

Criminal justice expert, Rob Allen, a former member of the youth justice board, said that Gove’s ideas of enabling prisoners to earn early release through education, giving prison governors more autonomy, and selling Victorian prisons to fund modern jails were all proposed in a Conservative 2008 green paper, Prisons with a Purpose. This was written by the former Tory ministers, Nick Herbert and Edward Garnier.

“Gove made clear these are ideas to which he is attracted rather than firm policies. Some may be sensible, others less so – all are technically difficult to implement,” wrote Allen on his Unlocking Potential blog ... “[The key will be] getting enough cash from the Treasury to run a safe and decent system.”