The Police, Crime, Sentencing And Courts Bill  X Prison Expansion- What you need to know: #KillTheBill

#PoliceCrackdownBill goes beyond restrictions to protest and ever more draconian police powers... Harsher sentences, mandatory minimums and new parole restrictions mean more people will be in prison & for longer, and charities will get tax breaks for holding children in captivity

We know this legislation will predominantly affect those oppressed by racism, capitalism and ableism.

Sentencing - The government claims it is: “strengthening the law around custodial sentences so that the time spent in prison better reflect the severity of the crimes committed.” they will do this by: Allowing magistrates to sentence people for longer terms;

Making 18-21-year olds eligible for “whole life order” sentences - no possibility of parole; Increasing the minimum time in prison under “discretionary life sentences” before being eligible for parole; Reinforcing mandatory minimum sentences.

But what this means in practice is the state locking up people from our communities for longer.

Parole - Under the new bill, parole boards will have greater power to deny parole. Where parole is granted, there will be more restrictions and greater monitoring attached to license conditions. In practice,

this will mean more people getting recalled to prison for infractions of increasingly draconian and often arbitrary parole conditions – both those on definite and indefinite sentences.

Prison Academies - Under this Bill, operating a “Prison academy” will become a charitable activity. This will mean funding prisons for children will guarantee donor’s tax-breaks.

Prison Academies (so-called secure schools) expand the use of exclusion and detention for people aged 10 to 17 now with “a visionary child-focus”. Underneath this smokescreen is an extension of the school to prison pipeline, soon to be marked as a charitable undertaking.

If they build them, they will fill them. Greater police powers, longer sentences, more draconian conditions for people on license – these are the tools the state and private sector is using to increase the number of people it can surveil and hold in captivity in its prisons.

It is not a coincidence that the Prison Estates Transformation Program – the plan to create over 10,000 new prison places in new “mega-prisons” – is well underway. The time to resist prison expansion is now.