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Thursday 29 August

2002

64%

of jails are overcrowded

Over 52,500 people are being held in overcrowded prison conditions,

according to figures released today by the Howard League for Penal

Reform.  Preston, Shrewsbury,

Leicester, Dorchester and Swansea prisons top the overcrowding league. 

This

week there are over 71,500 men, women and children in prison in England

and Wales, and around 100 people held in police cells as

no prisons have spaces to take them. The prison population has been

rising steadily over the last ten years, increasing from 45,500 in June

1992 to today's unprecedented level.  This includes a rise of over

6,000 in 2002 alone. 

To

bring about a long-term solution to this crisis, the Howard League calls

on the Government to include a statutory limit on the prison population in

the Criminal Justice Bill that it will lay before Parliament in the

autumn.

Frances

Crook, Director of the Howard League, said:

?Our

prisons are becoming no more than warehouses once again. 

The consequences of overcrowding are jeopardising both the safe

running of the prison system and the rehabilitation

of individual offenders.  Increasingly

prisoners are spending more and more time idle in their cells, and less

time purposefully addressing their offending behaviour. 

If prison is to serve any useful purpose it must be to return

prisoners to the community better equipped to lead crime free lives. The

current crisis effectively precludes this?.

?While

ministers have been enjoying their summer recess, literally thousands of

prisoners and prison staff have been spending a long, hot summer in

prisons which are bursting at the seams.?

Notes to editors

• Figures sourced from Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate.  Occupation of prisons, remand centres, young offender institutions and police cells, England and Wales 31 July 2002.  The occupancy figures relate to the CNA - the certified normal accommodation figure, ie: the number of prisoners institutions were built to hold.   

• A briefing paper containing details of all full and overcrowded prisons in England and Wales, along with their population figures, accompanies this release.  It can be found on this site by pressing here

• For a week by week breakdown of the prison population, along with related commentary, press here

• Soaring prison numbers mean that many prisoners are being held two in a cell designed for one, and being overcrowded in larger cells and dormitories.  To see the extent of each establishment’s ‘doubling up’, see the response to Paul Stinchcombe MP’s parliamentary question (24 July 02) (and search for question no 66237)

• The Howard League now has ISDN facilities

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