Jails bursting at the seams

Every adult jail in London is facing an overcrowding crisis which is hampering the fight against crime, according to new figures today.

Highlighted by campaigners at the Prison Reform Trust, the statistics show that all six of the jails are on the brink of hitting their official "maximum safe overcrowded capacity" - when they could not take any more inmates.

With staff stretched to cope with the numbers, valuable rehabilitation projects designed to prevent reoffending are being undermined, it is claimed.

Holloway, Belmarsh, Brixton, Pentonville, Wandsworth and Wormwood Scrubs had a normal uncrowded capacity of 4,831 during December, but actually held 5,559 inmates. Jails can continue to operate safely with some inmates sharing three to a double cell or two to a single cell, but there is an official operational capacity which cannot be exceeded.

The figure changes as cells or wings are brought in and out of use according to repairs but for now, the six jails have a safe maximum capacity of 5,703 - which means they were only 144 inmates away from their safe limits in December.

Pentonville has the worst record, holding 28 per cent more prisoners than it is intended to house. Brixton and Wandsworth were also holding over 20 per cent more inmates than they were designed for, as courts continue to jail defendants at a greater rate than at any time for 40 years. Now campaigners want urgent Government action to divert less serious offenders away from prison.

The figures have emerged as Government spending watchdogs at the National Audit Office report today that the Prison Service has started to make strides in working with inmates to reduce chronic reoffending rates, which see 56 per cent caught for fresh crimes within two years of release.

However, the Prison Reform Trust warns that programmes to boost reading and writing levels, provide job training, drugs rehabilitation and skills to make violent offenders control their anger are all much harder to run in overcrowded jails. In such cases, inmates spend too long locked in their cells doing nothing and too little time on the effort to become law-abiding.

Joe Levenson, the trust's policy officer, said prisoners in London going without such programmes "means attempts to protect the public and reduce reoffending are being severely damaged, because it is less likely prisoners will be released with the skills and opportunities necessary for their effective resettlement".

The major jails, known as local prisons, are facing growing pressure from courts because they chiefly hold remand prisoners or those just starting their sentences before being moved to other prisons.

A Prison Service spokesman said: "Overcrowding does not debilitate the whole prison system. It is mainly concentrated in local prisons which are expected to absorb prisoners as and when the courts remand them.

"Overcrowding is carefully monitored to ensure that prisons experiencing population difficulties receive support in moving sentenced prisoners to other jails as quickly as possible."

The next three years will see an extra £600million poured into prisons, but pressure is unlikely to ease because the jail population is forecast to rise by a further 6,000.

The trust says two-thirds of inmates are sentenced to less than 12 months, eligible for release after four, and therefore are not in jail long enough for any meaningful work to be done with them. It would be both cheaper and more effective, it is claimed, to put them through intensive programmes without sending them to jail.