Prison overcrowding exposed

The scale of the prison overcrowding crisis in England and Wales is laid bare today (Monday 2 March) as figures reveal that three in four men’s jails are holding more people than they are designed for.

Ministry of Justice (MoJ) data, analysed by the Howard League for Penal Reform, shows how prisons have been forced to cram more people into cells as prisoner numbers have grown and other jails have closed.

Exeter is designed to accommodate 318, but is holding 530.

Between the end of January 2013 and the end of January 2015, the prison population (excluding immigration removal centres) rose from 83,062 to 83,680. Over the same period, 12 prisons were either closed or re-roled and the number of places was cut from 78,935 to 75,374.

Increased overcrowding has coincided with deep staff cuts and a rise in the number of suicides, self-harm incidents and violent attacks behind bars.

The problem is most acute in local and training prisons for men. At the end of last month, 64 of the 75 Category B and Category C men’s prisons in England and Wales had populations larger than their Certified Normal Accommodation (CNA) levels – the prison service’s own measure of how many prisoners can be held safely and decently.

The most overcrowded prison was Leeds. Designed to accommodate 669 prisoners, the Category B jail was in fact holding 1,218 at the end of January 2015.

At its worst, overcrowding can mean two prisoners sharing a 6ft-by-10ft cell designed for one with little ventilation and an unscreened toilet at the foot of the bunks.

Official inspections have found prisoners spending up to 23 hours a day in such conditions, as overcrowded prisons lack the resources to house people safely, give them something to do and reduce reoffending following release.

The figures indicate that plans to set up a network of resettlement prisons – keeping prisoners close to their homes and probation workers in the last three months of their sentence – will founder unless the prison population is reduced.

Current pressures mean that prisoners are placed where there is a bed, not where they need to be to best reduce reoffending.

Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “Caging men in squalor with nothing to do all day is never going to help them become law-abiding citizens on release.

“Far too many people are being sent into already overcrowded jails and the need to stem the flow is now urgent.

“Government must get a grip on a prison system in crisis that is feeding the crime problem and creating more victims.”