The Devolution of the Criminal Justice System

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:14 pm on 6 March 2018.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 2:14, 6 March 2018

Well, the Member has been extremely strong in his view on this, and it is a matter that's not devolved, but I will seek to answer some of the questions that he poses. When the Parc prison was opened in Bridgend, in the council ward that I represented, it did not work well. It did not work well for its first few years. There were a number of serious incidents within the prison. It went through prison governors at the rate of knots. One prisoner escaped by hanging onto the underside of a lorry and was never found, and staff from Swansea and Cardiff had to be brought in to deal with unrest within the prison. That is something, clearly, that nobody wants to see. But he raises an important point, and it's this: if we get to the point where we are looking to devolve criminal justice, then we need to develop a Welsh penal policy. I've always argued that you can devolve the police separately, but if you take the courts, then you have the probation service, you have the prison service, you have sentencing policy, the Crown Prosecution Service—it all hangs together; it's all part of the justice system. It is time, I think, as he rightly points out, for us to start the debate on what a Welsh penal policy might look like if criminal justice is devolved. He makes the case for smaller prisons. I've got no reason to doubt what he is putting forward, but I think it's hugely important that he has started a debate on what Welsh policy would look like in the event of criminal justice being devolved.