More men in prison than ever before
 
Figures released today by the Prison Reform Trust show that there are more men in prison than ever before as the Prison Service is forced to make financial savings and the Home Office reduces the overall number of prison places.
 
According to official figures the number of adult male prisoners is currently 68,479, the highest ever recorded total. In the last month the total population has increased by just under 1300, the equivalent of two medium sized jails.
 
Of the 139 jails in England and Wales, 83 are currently overcrowded. The ten most overcrowded adult male prisons are:
 
Leicester, Preston, Dorchester, Exeter, Swansea, Shrewsbury, Usk, Leeds, Lincoln and Lancaster.
 
Overall there are more than 16,000 prisoners sharing two to a cell meant for one person in conditions which were recently described by the Chief Executive of the National Offender Management Service, Martin Narey, as ‘little short of gross’. Many jails are struggling to provide adequate levels of purposeful activity for prisoners who can be locked in their cells for up to 20 hours each day.
 
Despite the population pressures the Prison Service has had to make savings in recent months to avoid a predicted overspend for the current financial year. This has led to a recruitment freeze for all non-essential posts.
 
Overall prison numbers began to stabilize at the end of the last year and the Home Office has started to temporarily close some accommodation. The capacity of the Prison Service was reduced in January by just under 500 places.
 
Speaking today the Director of the Prison Reform Trust, Juliet Lyon, said:
 
‘Until Government succeeds in its policy to reserve prison for serious and violent offenders, and unless the courts are prepared to send petty offenders out on community service or drug treatment orders and keep time spent in custody to a necessary minimum, then we are stuck with an overcrowded prison system patently failing to do its job to prevent re-offending.’
 
 

Notes to Editors:  
 
1.      The total prison population in England and Wales currently stands at 75, 376. It has increased by nearly 25,000 in the last ten years. In 1995 the average prison population was 51,084. When Labour came to Government in May 1997, the prison population stood at 60, 131.
 
2.      The women’s prison population in England and Wales has fallen by more than 200 over the last year. It currently stands at 4,377.
 
3.      By the end of the decade the Home Office predicts a total prison population of up to 87,500.
 
4.      In January the certified normal accommodation level of the Prison Service (the uncrowded capacity) was reduced by 481, from 68,718 at the end of December to 68,237 at the end of January.
 
5.      In a House of Commons written answer on 28th February 2005 the Minister for Prisons and Probation, Paul Goggins, said:
 
‘In December 2004 the Director General of the Prison Service wrote to all senior managers requesting that any discretionary spending be avoided, and that recruitment be restricted to whatever is essential to maintain a safe and secure operation of prisons or the basic operation of the Service. This was done with the intention of reducing expenditure in order to ensure that the Prison Service did not exceed its delegated budget in the current financial year.  Each subsequent forecast of the spend for the year has indicated a lower overspend and the Service believes that final outturn will be close to budget.’

6. Since Labour came to power in 1997 there have been 17,000 extra prison
   places provided at a cost of more than £2.5 billion.
 
7.      Building news prisons has not proved to be a solution to prison overcrowding. In the last ten years 13 new prisons have been opened and of these nine are overcrowded.
 
8.      Prison has a poor record for reducing re-offending – six out of ten prisoners are reconvicted within two years of release. Of male young adults under 21 three quarters are reconvicted and of those sentenced to prison for burglary three quarters are reconvicted.
 
9.      Ex-prisoners are responsible for one in five of all crimes at a cost of at least £11 billion a year.
 
10.  Most of the rise in the prison population over the last decade can be explained by the significant increases in the proportion of adult male offenders sent to prison and the length of sentences given. On 28th February 2005  there were 28,580 men serving sentences of four years and over, more than half (57 per cent) of the sentenced male prison population. This compares with 14,622 in 1994, an increase of 92 per cent. In terms of custody rates, in the magistrate courts offenders are three times more likely to go to prison compared to ten years ago and in the crown court almost twice as likely. First time domestic burglars are almost twice as likely to receive a custodial sentence today as they were eight years ago. At the same time the average sentence length for burglars has increased from 16 months to 18 months.