Britain's prisons reach full capacity

13 April 2012

Britain's prisons are now officially full, warders have revealed.

Home Secretary John Reid is expected to respond by announcing crisis measures to lock convicts in police cells in the next few days.

The Daily Mail revealed last week that jails had only 326 spaces left, forcing officials to open talks with police chiefs about using their cells.

Now the Prison Officers Association, which represents warders, says capacity has been fully reached.

It also warned of huge problems on overcrowded wings, with two prison riots and a hostage taking in the past week.

Colin Moses, POA national chairman, said the prison service was now in "uncharted territory".

He added: "We stand ready to help solve the problems but doubt that the current Prison Service management have the competencies or the will to take on the challenge."

Mr Reid is preparing to fork out millions of pounds on placing the inmates in police stations - a policy known as Operation Safeguard - rather than sanction early release of people reaching the end of their sentences.

The Home Secretary and his aides fear letting convicts go would be hugely damaging to the Government, while fatally undermining his own tough stance on crime.

Taxpayers will foot the bill for the decision. The exact rate is still being hammered out, but in 2002 - the last time Ministers had to plead for help from the police to house convicts - it was a staggering £362 per prisoner each night. The final bill was more than £10m.

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said: "This is a shocking consequence of the Government's failure to address the chronic lack of capacity in the prisons.

"The public will continue to pay a very high and very dangerous price."

The total number of prison places available is 79,968. No prison building is currently taking place. Mr Reid has promised to build 8,000 more spaces, but this work will not begin until next year. He is yet to find the hundreds of millions of pounds needed, most of which will have to be raided from existing Home Office budgets.

His officials are working on a series of measures to cut the prison population, but these will do nothing to avert the current crisis.

Plans include sending home thousands of foreign inmates to serve most of their sentences overseas.

Currently, the Government has agreements with more than 100 countries who are willing to take back criminals so they can complete their punishment in their homeland.

But, incredibly, the convict can object and insist he serves his time at UK taxpayers' expense.

The criminal is then free to fight deportation once their sentence is complete.

Mr Reid has tabled amendments to the Police and Justice Bill which will remove the need for the criminal to give consent. But these are unlikely to become law until next year.

Britain will also have to re-negotiate the terms of its transfer agreements with other countries, which could take months. Ministers are also likely to be held back by their commitment to human rights.

China and Iran are among the nations at the top of the list of overseas nationals in our jails, but Britain is not allowed to send inmates back to these countries in case they are tortured.

The prisoners who can be removed will be sentenced by the UK courts, but sent home as soon as possible.

They will have their sentence translated into that of the UK criminal justice system. That means a person given four years overseas will still be able to walk free after serving less than half.

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