ABSTRACT
This chapter examines from a sociological perspective a subject which looms large in the public imagination and in rhetoric from both the Left and the Right of the political divide. When New Labour came to power in 1997, its manifesto promised that it would be the ‘Law and Order’ party, ‘tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime’. Since that time, statistics indicate that overall crime, including violent crime, has fallen by almost 40 per cent (www.crimestatistics.gov.uk/). But at the same time, the prison population in England and Wales rose from about 66,000 in 2001 to more than 80,000 in 2009, while the prison population in Scotland stood at a record 7,835 in 2009, up from less than 6,000 in 2000. The Labour government is not alone in wanting to lock up more people. The Conservative Party website stated in December 2009 that if successful at the next general election it planned to increase prison capacity by 5,000 places above Labour’s plans.
