In August Corporate Watch, a not-for-profit co-operative that researches the social and environmental impact of capitalism, released their latest report on prison expansion in England Scotland and Wales: Prison Island. Now physical copies of the report are available to buy from Freedom Bookshop and from Corporate Watch’s website.

Find out more about the report below and keep an eye on Corporate Watch’s twitter for information on a upcoming tour to promote the report.

Prison Island shines a light on one of the biggest prison building programs in generations.

Read the latest research on:

• The Prison Estates Transformation Programme that aims to create 10,000 new prison places by 2020 through the construction of six mega prisons and five new ‘residential centres’ for women
• Detailed information about each of the proposed prisons and their locations
• Companies building the prisons
• The people behind the projects
• New prisons being built by the Scottish Prison Service, including a potential prison for people of non-binary gender
• The British Government’s attempts to build prisons abroad in Nigeria and Jamaica

The UK prison population has risen by 82% in the last 30 years. We are increasingly becoming a ‘prison island’, where state violence and imprisonment are used to maintain a divided society built on exploitation. England and Wales have the highest imprisonment rate in western Europe, with Scotland the third most imprisoning country.

This once-in-a-generation prison building programme represents a significant expansion of the repressive apparatus of the British state, entrenching the power of corporations in the criminal justice system even further. This report aims to document and contextualise this escalation in mass incarceration and provide information to support those fighting against it.

Download a copy of the report:

• Low res (3mb)
• High res (19mb)