While its likely the UK will follow the US's path of a prison industrial complex the current Justice Minister, whose remit over prisons does not cover who actually gets charged or arrested, thats the Home Secretary's remit, Ken Clarke has suggested that prisons are expensive and pointless and reform should be more of a goal. Clarke is very much to the left of the Conservative party and during New Labour's height in the late 90s it was suggested he might defect so its not especially surprising hes saying this stuff (although of course New Labour was dead keen on building prisons and letting private companies run them) but it also makes it questionable how much support he'll get from the rest of the party which is generally more in favour of being tough on criminals, lock em up and so on.
Still its vaguely hopeful I suppose.
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