06 June 2003
Home Office officials this week defiantly defended the government's penal policy despite more evidence that Britain's jails are in crisis.
The department said there was 'no need for panic policy-making' on the back of three more damning reports by watchdogs highlighting severe overcrowding problems in English and Scottish jails.
But prison officers claimed the system had now reached 'near breaking point' and urged ministers to impose tougher community-based sentencing to ease the burden on the service.
Britain's prison population has risen to a record 73,000, leaving 90 of the country's 138 jails officially overcrowded. Conditions have deteriorated dramatically, the Prison Reform Trust claims, with some inmates now locked in crowded cells for 23 hours a day.
This week, two reports by the chief inspector of prisons in England and Wales, Anne Owers, highlighted problems at Wandsworth Prison in south London and Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight.
A third report, from the Scottish Prisons Inspectorate, criticised conditions at Peterhead, north of Aberdeen.
Owers, who has published a string of damning studies in the past month, said overcrowding was the key problem. In a report published on June 4, she described conditions at Parkhurst as 'extremely depressing' and rife with bullying, and claimed the safety of prisoners could not be guaranteed.
A report on Wandsworth, published on June 3, claimed management was 'failing to meet basic standards of decency and activity'. Inspectors also found that the site was 'inadequately staffed'.
Commenting on Wandsworth, she said: '[This report] stands witness to the damaging effects of simply cramming more people into prisons that do not have the capacity or resources to do more than contain them, unable to offer fundamental conditions of decency, let alone carry out effective work to reduce reoffending.'
A source at the Prison Officers Association said it had warned the Prison Service that overcrowding and understaffing in jails meant the system was close to 'critical mass'.
But a Home Office spokesman responded: 'We can't panic. People have said the system is close to breaking point for years and every year we have created additional capacity.
'But we do recognise problems, and a new Bill, which should come into force next year, will facilitate greater use of community sentencing and flexible prison-based sentencing by the judiciary.
'We are also building prisons in Peterborough and Ashford, Kent to ease the strain.'
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