Home Office admits prisons dependent on police cells

1 Mar 07
The emergency use of police cells to tackle prison overcrowding equates to almost half of the Prison Service's spare capacity, the Home Office revealed this week.

02 March 2007

The emergency use of police cells to tackle prison overcrowding equates to almost half of the Prison Service's spare capacity, the Home Office revealed this week.

Data published by the National Offender Management Service, a Home Office agency, on February 28 shows that the Prison Service was operating at 99% capacity five days earlier, with just 914 out of 80,451 places remaining in UK jails.

Under Home Secretary John Reid's 'Operation Safeguard' policy, introduced last October, 400 police cells are reserved each day to provide breathing space.

The statistics also show that the Home Office is making increasing use of the police cells to prevent jails from reaching 100% capacity. On February 23, for example, 57 cells were in use to detain prisoners, compared with just 14 in mid-January.

However, the number of criminals monitored under home detention curfews has decreased in recent weeks, the figures show.

Reid has outlined plans to create 8,000 new prison places, which would allow him to shut down Operation Safeguard. But the Home Office's finance team has yet to reveal how it intends to pay for the programme when its annual spending settlement has been frozen, in real terms, until 2011.

A Home Office spokeswoman said: 'We couldn't possibly put all financial figures in place for a budget that would cover a capital spend programme that lasts eight years: far longer than our standard spending cycle. But, as the home secretary has stated, the money will be found.'

Meanwhile, Prison Service officials have denied that Deerbolt young offenders' institute in Durham, the scene of a riot on February 27, is under-resourced and understaffed.

PFmar2007

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