Prison ships plan as jails overflow

12 April 2012

Home Secretary John Reid has been criticised after it emerged that he is seeking prison ships to hold inmates as jails in England and Wales approach full capacity.

The Home Office placed an advert on Friday seeking firms to provide places for 200 to 800 prisoners in floating jails.

The move came as 47 convicts were held in police cells to relieve pressure on jails, under Operation Safeguard procedures activated by Mr Reid last weekend.

After a dip over the past fortnight, total prison population has risen again and on Saturday morning stood at 79,825, including those in police cells.

This is just 18 short of the record high reached two weeks ago, and only 104 below the system's maximum operational capacity of 79,929.

A Home Office spokeswoman said 19 police forces were ready to hold prisoners in up to 240 cells. There is potential for expansion to a total of 520 police cells through October and November.

But prison reform groups warned that the moves would do nothing to make the public safer and could even increase reoffending rates.

Frances Crook, the director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: "If you use ships and prison cells which are not appropriate for dealing with prisoners' needs, many of them will come out and commit more crimes. So the Home Secretary will be responsible for more crimes.

"I want to see him supporting successful community sentences. It's not the whole answer but is a step in the right direction."

The director of the Prison Reform Trust, Juliet Lyon, said Mr Reid seemed to regard the current crisis as "a storage problem rather than the social and economic disaster that it is".

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