REHASHED plans to lock up yet more people as part of the government’s failed strategy to tackle crime were condemned as “making a mockery” of prison reform today.

Justice Secretary Dominic Raab announced that another 4,000 people are to be crammed into already failing prisons as part of the government’s much trumpeted intention to add another 20,000 people to the record 80,000 currently incarcerated.

Mr Raab said that the 4,000 additional cell spaces would be created by adding new wings to existing prisons and “refurbishing old prisons space.”

HMPs Norwich, Birmingham, Liverpool, Haverigg and HMP/YOIs Feltham, Aylesbury and Swinfen Hall are the sites being targeted for refurbishment, the Ministry of Justice said.

Prisons expected to receive additional blocks are HMPs Bullingdon, Channings Wood, Elmley, Highpoint, Hindley, Wayland, Guys Marsh, High Down and Stocken.

Re-announcing the expansion plan, Mr Raab said: “Our prison-building programme will deliver an extra 20,000 prison places by the mid-2020s to punish offenders, deter crime and protect the public.”

But Prison Reform Trust director Peter Dawson said: “Endlessly making the same announcement about building new prison spaces is not going to solve the chronic failure of our prison system.

“For 30 years overcrowding and the continued use of prisons built in the 19th century have made a mockery of promises of reform.”

He said that after five years in which £4 billion has been spent “prisoners will still be sharing squalid Victorian cells.”

Mr Dawson said that the policy of handing out longer prison sentences by Tory and Labour governments “supposedly to increase public confidence” had created the demand for more prison places.

“A more intelligent approach is very long overdue,” he said.

Howard League for Penal Reform campaign manager Rob Preece said: “Building more prison places will not solve anything.

“Our focus should be on investing in public services that help to stop people becoming involved in crime in the first place.

“If the criminal justice system grows larger and larger, so do the problems that we all have to solve.

“Problems in prisons spill out into communities because they put more strain on local services, and this in turn leads to more crime.

“Investing instead in housing, education, jobs and hospitals is the best way to keep the public safe.”