Thread by @CAPExpansion

Boris Johnson announced a renewed commitment to build 10,000 new prison places and expand police stop and search powers. This prison expansion plan is just as terrible and racist as he is! THE CASE AGAINST PRISON EXPANSION:

(THREAD)

Despite already locking up the most people in Europe, the government's Prison Estate Transformation Programme (PETP) plans to build 10,000 new prison spaces. The construction of HMP Wellingborough is already underway. We are building a campaign to stop it! bit.ly/2H8H0vM

The claim that new prisons will address "overcrowding" is used to justify every wave of prison expansion. In reality, building new prisons incentivises the incarceration of more people for minor crimes. The only solution to overcrowding is DECARCERATION!

While politicians claim building new prisons will decrease rates violence & drug use, the UK's newest & most "modern" prison (HMP Oakwood) has one of the highest rates of violence, drug use & self-harm. Prison architecture does NOT relieve the inhumane conditions of incarceration

Prisons do not "rehabilitate." People who enter the prison system are more likely to get caught up in cycles of "reoffending." Prison does nothing to address the root economic & social problems which bring people into contact with the criminal justice system in the first place.

"The life histories of people in prison are more often than not characterised by a toxic mix of state abandonment and state violence" excluded from schools, proper housing, health care, social services, placed in and out of care, etc. @oonskie
independent.co.uk/voices/boris-j…

Victims of violence in the UK are more likely to receive punishment from the criminal justice system than they are to receive justice: 29% of incarcerated adults experienced abuse as children and 53% of women in prison are survivors of domestic violence.

Policing & criminalisation are racialised, classed & gendered practices. The prison system disproportionately punishes people of colour, disabled people, those in the care system & the mentally ill. Building prisons incentivises more penalising treatment of these communities.

While communities experience cuts to social services, housing, education and health care, private companies like @kiergroup make millions off of the construction and operations of UK prisons. They make the political choice to invest and profit from mass incarceration.

Imagine if the billions used to arrest, terrorize, prosecute and imprison those who have experienced state violence and abandonment were instead used to address the growing social and economic inequalities in our communities!

SUPPORT THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST PRISON EXPANSION!