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UK: Jails at bursting point

01 September 1996

Secret emergency proposals have been discussed by the Home office and a private security firm - Reliance Custodial Services - to deal with the crisis in the prison population, which stands at a record 57,354, according to documents leaked to the Independent newspaper. The plans, which are expected to come into effect in November, involve locking-up as many as 1000 prisoners in cells at magistrates' courts overnight and at weekends. The Home Office has requested prisoner escort contractors to submit proposals on how the project might work. The plans have been widely condemned, with Harry Fletcher, deputy general secretary of the National Association of Probation Officers, commenting: "The use of magistrates' courts cells has never been considered in the past because they have no toilets, no natural light and they are very smelly. They are meant to hold people for a couple of hours." The Home Office is also preparing to convert the former US nuclear base, at Woodbridge, Suffolk, into a prison. The plan, described by a spokesman for the Prison Officers Association as "one of the most ill-conceived that I have heard of", would involve prisoners being guarded by Ministry of Defence police. Independent 18 & 19.10.96.