Unless Gove cuts prison numbers, he’s doomed to fail | Simon Jenkins

Michael Gove’s plans are welcome, as far as they go. But they won’t work unless the justice secretary addresses sentencing

Prisons are the fetid, dank dungeons of modern government. If de Tocqueville was right and you can judge a nation’s democracy by its jails, Britain is rotten. They are what you get when public service is left to fear-exploiting, headline-hunting, micro-managing politicians. You get a suppurating blister of violence, self-harm, drug abuse and recidivism. “Prison works” is a...