Overcrowding in UK jails ‘deplorable’
originally published:
8th December 2009
Funding cuts are jeopardising prisoner safety in overcrowded jails in England and Wales, Council of Europe inspectors have said.
The Committee for Prevention of Torture visited jails in south-east England, and Greater Manchester and said the state of affairs was “to be deplored”. And they have called for routine strip-searching of young offenders to end.
The government says front-line work is protected from efficiency savings and it is creating extra cell space. The CPT makes periodic visits to detention centres across the EU.
In November and December last year, it visited HMP Manchester; Woodhill, in Buckinghamshire; and Wandsworth, in south-west London, along with Maghaberry and Magilligan prisons, in Northern Ireland.
Members also visited Huntercombe young offender institution (YOI) in Oxfordshire and the Harmondsworth immigration removal centre.
In their report, they noted that 87 of 142 prisons in England and Wales were above “normal” occupancy levels, with too many inmates spending too long “locked in their cells with little access to any meaningful activities”.
