Jails breach safe limits
 
Overcrowding forces the Prison Service to risk good order, security and proper running of prisons around the country
 
This summer over half of the prisons in England and Wales are officially overcrowded according to Home Office figures. There are now over 10,000 more people in the prison system that it is designed for. 74 out of 142 jails are over the Prison Service’s Certified Normal Accommodation: “the good, decent standard of accommodation that the Service aspires to provide all prisoners”. Worse still, 15 prisons were full beyond even their safe overcrowding limit in July.
 
Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust said:
 
“This level of overcrowding poses a real and serious danger to prison and public safety.”
 
Conditions are deteriorating. Prisons are short-staffed. Opportunities for constructive activity are very limited. People are being moved from one overcrowded prison to another. Over 17,000 prisoners are now held two to a cell built for one. They 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, there have been 26 apparent self-inflicted deaths in custody. Of these, 24 have occurred in overcrowded prisons.
 
Juliet Lyon said:
 
“The terrible correlation between overcrowding and deaths in custody demands urgent investigation.”
 
The total number of prisoners that a jail can fit in, allowing for a safe level of overcrowding, is called its ‘operational capacity’. Last year, on 12 July, the then prisons’ minister Paul Goggins was asked in parliament about overcrowded prisons. At the time he was able to say: “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 the proper operation of the planned regime.”
 
Just one year later, this is no longer true. Fifteen prisons acros England and Wales have been forced beyond their overcrowding limit, jeopardising, “control, security and the planned regime”.
 

Juliet Lyon said:
 
“The government have grown complacent about overcrowding and now is 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.”
 
In July the Home Office was forced to withdraw its long-term prison population projections – released in January – as the population had climbed to 2,000 over the highest predicted scenario in only 6 months. The new projection foresees the prison population going as high as 90,000 by the end of the decade.
 
Juliet Lyon said:
 
“Massive prison growth will not end of its own accord. 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. 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 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.”
 
 
Note to editors:
 
1. The Prison population on 5 August was 76,735. A year earlier it was 75,092 – a rise of 1,643. Source: National Offender Management Service, Prison Population & Accommodation Briefing for 5 August 2005.
 
2. The 15 prisons over their operational capacity on 15 July are: Altcourse, Brixton, Bullingdon, Camp Hill, Chelmsford, Coldingley, Forest Bank, Gartree, Highdown, Lancaster Farms, Lowdham Grange, Wandsworth, Woodhill, Wormwood Scrubs, Wymott
 
3. The prison capacity is outlined in Prison Service Order 1900, Certified Prisoner Accommodation. It says: “Certified Normal Accommodation (CNA), or uncrowded capacity, is the Prison Service’s own measure of accommodation.  CNA represents the good, decent standard of accommodation that the Service aspires to provide all prisoners.”
 
4. Prison Service Order 1900 also says: “Any prisoner places provided above CNA are referred to as overcrowding places.  Any cell or establishment with an occupancy/population above CNA is referred to as crowded (or overcrowded).”
 
5. Finally: “Operational capacity is the total number of prisoners that an establishment can hold without serious risk to good order, security and the proper running of the planned regime.  It is determined and approved by Area Managers using operational judgement and their knowledge of establishment regime and infrastructure.”
 
Prison Name
Baseline CNA
In Use CNA
Operational Capacity
Population
 
[designed to hold]
[designed to hold minus any cells out of commission]
[number of prisoners who can be crowded in]
[number of prisoners held at end July]
Altcourse
614
614
903
933
Brixton
606
606
798
811
Bullingdon
759
759
963
968
Camp Hill
513
513
585
592
Chelmsford
441
437
575
581
Coldingley
370
370
390
391
Forest Bank
800
800
1,040
1,045
Gartree
651
435
440
451
Highdown
643
627
736
741
Lancaster Farms
480
480
527
528
Lowdham Grange
504
504
500
503
Wandsworth
1,113
966
1,416
1,436
Woodhill
677
650
762
766
Wormwood Scrubs
1,167
1,167
1,239
1,247
Wymott
1,021
997
1,046
1,050
Monthly prison population briefing