PRISON REFORM TRUST WARNS OF “PRISONS CRISIS” AS POLICE CELLS USED TO HOLD PRISONERS FOR FIRST TIME SINCE 1995

Speaking today, Joe Levenson, Policy Officer of Prison Reform Trust said that:

“The use of police cells to hold prisoners is deeply concerning and reveals a prison system system in crisis.  Prisoners held in police cells receive no help to tackle their offending behaviour or to address their drug, alcohol or mental health problems.  Keeping prisoners in police cells, where the emphasis is just on containment, is highly expensive and does nothing to prevent the next victim.     
   
Unless the Government acts urgently and calls upon judges and magistrates to divert less serious offenders away from imprisonment, the current prisons crisis will deepen and the entire criminal justice system will become paralysed.  Sending more people to prison is not the answer to preventing the next victim. After years of being tough on crime the Government must move away from law and order politics and tackle the social causes of crime.”
 

Notes to Editors

• On 12 July 2002, the prison population in England and Wales stood at 71,480.  This is over 25,000 higher than ten years ago. 

• The number of women in prison has increased particularly rapidly.  On 5 July 2002, there were 4,408 women in prison.  Ten years ago, in 1992 the average female prison population was 1,577.  Five years ago, it was 2,680.  The number of women in prison has increased by 177 per cent in the last ten years.      

• There are 12,400 prisoners on remand, an increase of 16 per cent in the previous twelve months.  However, many do not go on to receive a custodial sentence.  Of male prisoners received on remand in 1999, 53 per cent did not subsequently receive a prison sentence; of female remand prisoners, 65 per cent did not receive a custodial sentence.  Around 22 per cent of males and 21 per cent of females remanded in custody were acquitted, or the proceedings were terminated early.

• Ten years ago, one defendant in twenty-six went into custody; it is now one defendant in thirteen.

• Prisons are busting at the seams while probation workloads are falling.  The number of pre-sentence reports in 2001 fell by 6 per cent, community rehabilitation orders by about 2 per cent and punishment and rehabilitation orders by 15 per cent.

• Since 1995, over 12,000 additional prison places have been provided at a cost of £1.28 billion – an average of £100,000 a prison place.

• Most prisons remain ineffective in reducing reoffending.  Fifty-eight per cent of prisoners discharged in 1997 were reconvicted within two years of release.  For male young offenders, the reconviction rate was 76 per cent.

• A rising prison population has meant that prison overcrowding continues to be a major problem in England and Wales.  At the end of June 2002, 90 of the 140 prisons in England and Wales are overcrowded.  The most overcrowded prisons are Shrewsbury (343 prisoners in accommodation intended for 184; overcrowded by 86 per cent), Leicester (365 prisoners in accommodation intended for 199; overcrowded by 83 per cent) and Preston (620 prisoners in accommodation intended for 342; overcrowded by 81 per cent).

• Building new prisons has not been a solution to prison overcrowding.  In the last 10 years, 19 new prisons have been built.  Of these, 14 are already overcrowded.  The Government should further develop and promote community alternatives to custody for less serious offenders in order to alleviate prison overcrowding.  There should be a new Prison Rule that no prison should be overcrowded, with provisions for Parliament to be informed if exceptionally there is to be a material departure from that rule.

• Many prisoners have experienced a lifetime of social exclusion.  Compared with the general population, prisoners are thirteen times as likely to have been in care as a child, thirteen times as likely to be unemployed, ten times as likely to have been a regular truant and six times as likely to have been a young father.  Over 70 per cent of prisoners suffer from at least two mental disorders and 20 per cent of male and 37 per cent of female sentenced prisoners have attempted suicide in the past.

• The Prison Service has met its Key Performance Indicator target for purposeful activity just once in the last seven years.