text: Many conservatives in the United States have also come to see it makes no sense to keep locking up rising numbers of damaged or vulnerable citizens — whether on fiscal, humane, redemptive or criminal justice terms. I even took Gove to Texas for a BBC Panorama documentary examining the ‘Right-on-Crime’ movement that has swept the Republican party, prioritising rehabilitation over punishment and attempting to close the revolving door of imprisonment.
  No such luck in Britain. Tory politicians just keep playing to the gallery regardless of the evidence and judges are forced to send people to prison for longer and longer sentences, filling up the cells with an ageing as well as expanding population. It is, of course, even harder to assess and monitor the small number of jailed people like Khan — reportedly numbering about 220 — amid such chaos.
  The sad truth is many of the issues identified by John Howard back in the 18th century remain valid today: overcrowded cells, squalid conditions, poor healthcare, outbreaks of violence and lingering boredom. Yet now people are handed longer sentences, many prisons are swamped by drugs and we have made big leaps in understanding human psychology.