Prisons - in brief (7)
01 May 2005
UK: Prison population reaches another new high: The prison population of England and Wales hit a further record of high of 76,266 in July 2005. Meanwhile, figures from the International Centre for Prison Studies showed that England and Wales continued to jail more offenders at higher rates that any other major western European country, and that the use of imprisonment as the central plank of he government's criminal justice policy had increased by 15% since 1999. The UK prison population stands at 142 per 100,000. Geoff Dobson, for the Prison Reform Trust, asked: "Does this country really want to be seen to imprison far more of our population than our neighbours, France and Germany, and does this help to make ours a safer society than theirs?"
International Centre for Prison Studies; Prison reform Trust; The Guardian 27.6.05.