UK: More than half the jails in England and Wales are dangerously overcrowded and the conditions could be contributing to the number of prisoner suicides, a penal reform group warned last night.The Prison Reform Trust, which campaigns on behalf of inmates and their families, said the prison system had 10,000 more inmates than it was designed to hold.
With inmates reaching a record 76,897 this week, 74 of the 142 jails are over the prison service's "certified normal accommodation", the charity said. It added that 15 prisons exceeded even their safe overcrowding limit in July.
The "operational capacity" of a jail is defined as the total number of prisoners it can accommodate, allowing for a safe level of overcrowding
In July last year, the then prisons' minister, Paul Goggins, was asked in parliament about overcrowding. He said: "All those prisons are within their operating capacity, which is the total number of prisoners that an establishment can hold, taking into account control, security and proper operation of the planned regime."
But a year on, the charity said, 15 prisons across England and Wales were operating beyond their overcrowding limit, thereby jeopardising, the "control, security and the proper operation of the planned regime".
"This overcrowding poses a real and serious danger to prison and public safety," said Juliet Lyon, the director of the trust. The government had grown complacent about overcrowding and was "breaching its own final buffer".
"The summer holiday season usually gives prisons a respite while the courts take their break, instead the population is growing month on month. Even in the quietest months of the year, pressure is still building up within prisons."
The charity fears the situation could worsen in the next five years. The most recent Home Office projections forecast a jail population of up to 90,000 by 2010.
The Home Office last night played down the concerns.
"Prisons may exceed their certified normal accommodation, the figure at which the prison operates comfortably, but we do not operate above the operational capacity," a spokeswoman said.
"On some occasions prisons are listed as having populations higher than their operational capacity.
"The reason is most often attributed to the fact [that] a prisoner or a number of prisoners are absent on authorised absences, such as when a prisoner is recorded as part of an establishment's population but is held outside, for example in hospital or on release on temporary licence."
The trust claimed that overcrowding and worsening conditions were linked to a recent spate of suicides in prison and called for an investigation.
It said more than 17,000 prisoners were being held two to a cell built for one, and that such cells do not have to have separately ventilated lavatories, meaning more than one person must eat, sleep and defecate in the same small room.
Since the beginning of June, it said, there had been 26 apparent self-inflicted deaths in custody. Of these, 24 occurred in overcrowded jails.
"The terrible correlation between overcrowding and deaths demands urgent investigation," said Ms Lyon.
The growth in the number of prisoners could not be checked without proper measures. "It will take a concerted effort to reserve prison for serious and violent offenders and to invest in drug treatment, mental healthcare and safe, effective alternatives to custody," she said.
"Right now, the prison population is mushrooming out of control, and the government is still trying hopelessly to build its way out of a crisis."
Lucie Russell, director of SmartJustice, which campaigns for more alternatives to custody, said: "There is nothing smart about stacking up prisoners in overcrowded jails. It leads to more, not less, offending on release. It is not tough on crime, it is tough on the rest of us."
It emerged last month that senior judges are planning to urge the courts to cut average sentences by 15% in the hope of preventing the prison population from reaching 90,000 by 2010.
By Sam Jones posted 15 August 05
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