Prisons aren’t working

Will we learn the lessons of Daniel Khalife? 

It depends what those lessons are. If they revolve solely around prison placement decisions, security protocols, and risk assessments for inmates assigned to work details, then perhaps we will. These sorts of lessons are appealing. They appear to address the immediate causes of the absconsion. They make it look like ministers are doing something tangible. The word ‘crackdown’ can be broken out by Ministry of Justice press officers and newspaper headline writers alike. 

But what about the other lessons? When a suspect of Khalife’s profile is able to escape from a prison kitchen, attach himself to a food delivery truck, and lead police on a four-day manhunt across London, it raises questions far beyond the security policies of HMP Wandsworth. There’s been a lot of talking-head blather about Khalife’s army background and how his training would have enabled his escape and initial evasion of capture.