Five ways to stem prison overcrowding
 
The Prison Reform Trust today warned against relying wholly on short-term fixes to the accelerating growth in the prison population, or trying to build a way out of the crisis.
 
Juliet Lyon said:

“Measures such as tagging can be of great benefit as part of an individual’s sentence. But it will not solve the long-term problem of our prison system. Nor can the government build its way out of trouble. It is too late in the day and it would cost too much. Today’s news is a wake-up call. It’s time to take a hard look at who should be in prison and who should not be.
 
Our 5 points set out the hard choices needed. The alternative is to go on pouring money into a system in crisis, and to carry on keeping the wrong people in toxic conditions that promote re-offending on release.”
 
Five ways to cut the growth in prison numbers:
 
1)     Invest in community punishments that work and command the confidence of the community
2)     Divert mentally ill people from the courts and into treatment
3)     Provide drug treatment in the community
4)     Reduce unnecessary remand
5)     Stop recalling so many people to prison for technical breaches of their licence
 
Juliet Lyon said:
 
“To avert a crisis the Home Secretary must act now to maintain safety and security by keeping his commitment to reserve prison for serious and violent offenders.
 
Solutions lie in cutting any unnecessary remands and recalls to custody, using fines and supervised community sentences and diverting addicts and the mentally ill into the treatment they need.
 
Other government departments have to shoulder their responsibilities for the most vulnerable and challenging people in our society, rather than allowing them to fetch up in the one struggling public service that cannot exclude anyone. No one wants an overcrowded, ineffective prison system which releases people more, not less, likely to offend again.”
 
 

 
 
Notes for editors
 
* Last Friday the population stood at 77,373, an increase of 2,643 on the year before. According to reports in this morning’s Times it had risen by another 226 by Wednesday.
 
* At the end of December 2004 just fewer than 16,000 prisoners were held two to a cell designed for one person, the equivalent of 22 per cent of the prison population at that time.
 
* A study by the Prison Reform Trust and the National Council of Independent Monitoring Boards in September 2002 examined the impact of overcrowding. Of the 103 Independent Monitoring Boards (the watchdogs appointed by the Home Secretary to monitor prison conditions) who responded, 77 expressed concern that overcrowding was threatening prison safety, leading to prisoners being held in inhumane, degrading and unsafe conditions and damaging attempts to maintain family support and reduce re-offending by prisoners.
 
* 72 per cent of male sentenced prisoners and 70 per cent of female sentenced prisoners suffer from two or more mental disorders.
 
* 66 per cent of male sentenced prisoners and 55 per cent of female sentenced prisoners used drugs in the year before imprisonment.
 
* In 2003-2004 it cost an average of £37,305 to keep a person in prison.
  
* The average cost of each prison place built since 2000 is £99,839.
  
* Research by the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit highlighted in the Carter report (‘Managing Offenders, Reducing Crime’, December 2003) says that a 22 per cent increase in the prison population since 1997 is estimated to have reduced crime by around five per cent during a period when overall crime fell by 30 per cent. The report states: ‘There is no convincing evidence that further increases in the use of custody would significantly reduce crime’.
  
* Prison has a poor record for reducing re-offending - three out of five prisoners (61 per cent) are reconvicted within two years of being released - for young men and boys (under 21) it is 73 per cent.
  
* The number of prisoners in England and Wales has increased by over 25,000 in the last ten years. In 1995, the average prison population was 50,962. When Labour came to government in May 1997, the prison population was 60,131. Previously it took nearly four decades (1958-1995) for the prison population to rise by 25,000.
  
* England and Wales has the highest imprisonment rate in western Europe at 145 per 100,000 of the population. France has an imprisonment rate of 91 per 100,000 and Germany has a rate of 96 per 100,000.
  
* Over the last year more than half of all prisons have been overcrowded. At the end of August 2005, 81 of the 142 prisons in England and Wales were overcrowded.