On Adam Clarke's first day of work in the prison service at HMP Doncaster, he was answering a phone call on the ground floor when he was hit by a fall mop bucket.
“It was a bucket of urine and excrement,” Clark says of the 2018 incident.
Clark, who was now 32 years old and worked as an officer at HMP Nottingham and had to quickly get used to extreme working conditions. He regularly works 15-hour days, starting at 7am, and has since seen prisoners fare much worse.
Self-harm is a serious problem. Clark describes one incident in which a disturbed 19-year-old cut his chest.
Clarke is at the forefront of an overcrowding crisis that could lead to the introduction of new prisons in Britain as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labor leader Sir Keir Starmer go into battle ahead of the general election on July 4.
Britain's prison population surges decreased. has grown 93% since 1990 and is currently at a record high of nearly 88,000, according to the Department of Justice. The number is expected to rise to 106,300 by March 2027.
Official figures show the prison can only accommodate 1,350 inmates. But the Prison Officers' Association (POA) says the number of prisoners on site is much smaller – just 200.
In addition to the crisis of overcrowding and mental health problems, prisons also face huge staff shortages, drug addiction and rising levels of violence.
Collectively, these problems make it even more difficult for prisoners to be rehabilitated once they are released.
Mark Fairhurst, chairman of the POA, warns that an “explosion of violence” in British prisons is inevitable.
“I am very concerned that our members will face extreme levels of violence and we will lose prison to the riots,” says Mark Fairhurst, chairman of the POA. he says. “Because the pressure is so great on everything.
“Conditions are as bad as they were in 1990 when Strangeways [Greater Manchester prison] caused riots across the country. Only now we have 4,000 fewer staff and twice as many prisoners.”
Just last week it emerged that police chiefs had been ordered to make fewer arrests. Internal guidance drawn up by the National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) says chief constables should consider suspending “non-priority arrests” and suspending operations that could trigger a “large number of arrests”.
The Government is struggling is trying to announce a series of temporary measures to relieve overcrowding, such as releasing inmates early and housing them in police cells.
Parole rules that allow some prisoners to be released 70 days early took effect on Thursday . But the service works on loan.
“This will free up enough space that we can last until the end of June,” Fairhurst says. “Then we will be in a position where there is absolutely no place left and no government to make decisions.”
Tinderbox for violence
On April Fool's Day in 1990, 300 prisoners gathered. for a service in the chapel of HMP Strangeways.
After the antics of one of the prisoners, the case quickly escalated into chaos and caused riots throughout the prison.
Two people were killed, seven were taken hostage and almost 200 people were injured. Hundreds of prisoners fled to the roof in a protest that lasted 25 days, the longest in British criminal history.
Overcrowding at HMP Strangeways sparked a wave of prison riots 34 years ago. Photo: Rex/BBC
At Strangeways, prisoners protested against poor conditions. At the heart of the problem was overpopulation. Strangeways is a Victorian prison with a capacity of 970 prisoners. At the time of the riots, 1,647 people lived here.
Such overpopulation is still typical today. Of the UK's 122 prisons, 75 are overcrowded. Last year Chief Inspector Charlie Taylor warned the problem would lead to “hardship, poverty and the risk of further violence”.
HMP Leeds, the most overcrowded prison in the country according to the Howard League, a reform charity penitentiary system is loaded at 172% of its operating capacity.
It is associated with drug use and mental health problems. is growing.
“There is no doubt that there is a mental health crisis in our prisons,” says Andrea Coomber, executive director of the Howard League for Penal Reform.
According to Fairhurst , prisoners are increasingly being diagnosed with complex mental disorders such as schizophrenia, dementia, personality disorders and psychosis.
There has also been a huge shift in prisoners using psychoactive drugs such as Spice, a synthetic cannabinoid that has been linked to dozens of prison deaths.
Between 2013 and 2017, 41,354 drugs were seized in prisons. England and Wales, according to official figures. Between 2018 and 2022 this figure more than doubled to 92,130.
“We have two ambulances at Wymott at all times and incidents like this happen all the time,” says Ian Prescott, a prison officer. warden of HMP Wymott in Lancashire.
“These are the same people who deal with [the spice] all the time. Some of these people are close to death. One guy was given six shots of the antidote and it didn't work on him.”
Earlier in May, the Criminal Justice Union reported that 25 prison officers had been deliberately poisoned with spice by inmates working at the prison. mess hall at HMP Swaleside on the Isle of Sheppey.
The pressure has forced some officers to abandon their careers entirely.
The total number of UK prison staff is a tenth less than in 2009. Most importantly, they have much less experience. According to the Institute for Government (IfG), half of prison staff have less than five years' experience, more than double the figure in 2009.
The number of working days lost due to illness has also increased by a quarter since the beginning of the pandemic.
Many prison employees spent most of their careers working during the shutdown, when there were many more restrictions on inmates, Clark said. “They've never seen mass commuting, full unlocking, visiting prisoners,” he says.
“It's caused additional stress.”
Meanwhile, Britain's prisons are being destroyed as deterioration of infrastructure. In July 2023, prisons needed £1.4 billion for urgent repairs such as fire safety issues, a figure that has risen by 56% since 2019.
Prisoners at HMP Winchester were able to step into the Victorian era According to a report by the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) published earlier this month, prison cell walls have been tampered with using plastic cutlery.
Kitchens at HMP Pentonville are overrun by rats. In April, the IMB said its members saw “chewed and spat out ceiling insulation in light fixtures above open frying pans of food.”
Prisons have become a tinderbox for violence. During Covid the number of attacks on other prisoners and staff fell significantly but has risen steadily since then. Assault rates remain below pre-pandemic levels, but assault rates in men's prisons are now two-thirds higher than they were a decade ago.
Meanwhile, incidents of self-harm have risen sharply, especially among women.
Rates of self-harm among women increased by 79% between 2019 and 2022. 23.
At the beginning of last year, there were almost 1,700 cases of self-harm for every 1,000 female prisoners.
This has created a climate of fear among prison staff.
“The employer has a motto: 'Safe, Dignified, Reliable,'” says Clark.
“It’s not safe to cut staff, it’s indecent because you’re not maintaining the regime, and it’s not safe because we’re downsizing.”
“People feel that the system is failing”
What’s happening The internal side doesn’t matter only for prison officers, but also for Britain. The knock-on effects on the criminal justice system, policing and wider crime rates will be far-reaching.
Guidelines issued by the Sentencing Council in March last year directed courts to consider a suspended sentence due to lack of prison time conclusions. places.
“It's only a matter of time before someone who shouldn't be on the streets commits a terrible crime,” says POA's Sarah Rigby.
Cassia Rowland, senior research fellow at the IfG, adds: “People are the feeling that the justice system is failing and that is really harmful.”
Last October the government introduced the license to end supervised detention, also known as the early release scheme, which allowed some prisoners to be released from their sentences 18 days early during a curfew. In March, this period was increased to 60 days, and just last week it was increased again to 70 days.
In mid-May, the government introduced another emergency measure, known as Operation Early Dawn, which introduced sorting the process of transferring prisoners from police cells to magistrates' courts.
Ministers also reinstated Operation Protect, a temporary emergency measure used last year, which means 400 police cells can be used instead of prison beds.
Ministers also reinstated Operation Protect.
p “We know that the degree of prison overcrowding is taken into account when sentencing, and things like [lack of] access to rehabilitation programs in prisons mean that judges may not send people to prison when they otherwise would.” would do it,” Rowland says. from IfG.
There are around 400 violent criminals across the UK who could be released on bail because there is no room for them in prisons, says Fairhurst of the Prison Officers' Association. “It's aggravated burglary, assault, GBH, ABH, stalkers, domestic violence,” he adds.
Rowland said the early release scheme's risk assessment was not as robust as it should be. Some prisoners, such as convicted sex offenders, are excluded from the early release scheme. “But we also know that at least some people convicted of domestic violence have been released under this scheme,” Rowland says.
Prison governors have the ability to appeal decisions to release prisoners early they think they pose too high a risk, but they do not make a final decision. “The decision continues to be made centrally at HM Prison & Probation, not a particular governor, and they don't have veto power to stop it,” Rowland says.
Overcrowding at HMP Wandsworth means eight out of 10 prisoners live in single cells. Photo: Lucy North/PA Wire
Overcrowding means some prisoners are leaving prison through other means.
HMP Wandsworth, where accused spy Daniel Khalife escaped while in custody in September 2023 and sparked a nationwide search, was designed to hold 964 prisoners.
When inspectors visited it, there were 1,513 prisoners being held there. Eight out of ten prisoners lived in cells designed for one person.
The most alarming thing is the snowball effect. If offenders are kept in poor conditions, it is much more difficult for them to rehabilitate once released, increasing the likelihood of reoffending.
“It’s a vicious cycle,” says Yasmin Sebbana, deputy director of Public First. “When there are too many people in prison and too few prison staff, they cannot do rehabilitation. So once you're released you'll see a very high percentage of people coming right back.”
According to the IfG, in 2009/10, around 20,000 prisoners were enrolling in accredited education programs each year. Since then, that figure has fallen by 88%. Despite the end of the pandemic, many prisoners are kept in their cells for up to 22 hours a day.
“Released as homeless”
Prison overcrowding is a multi-faceted problem.
The UK population is growing – as it grows, so does the prison population. More people are also being convicted of serious crimes such as sex crimes and rape, with rates rising 40 percent and 58 percent respectively between 2019 and 2023.
It is important to note that sentences are getting longer. In 2010, the average prison sentence was 13.7 months, according to analysis by the Prison Reform Trust. By 2022, the rate increased 56% to 21.4 months.
The pandemic and the 2022 bar strike also created a backlog of cases, leading to a surge in incarceration rates later in life. From December 2022 to October 2023, the prison population rapidly increased by 605 people each month, about three times its current level.
The logjam in the court system means that many more defendants are in custody, meaning they have not yet been sentenced but have been denied bail.In March 2013, almost 13% of prisoners were either not brought to trial or were awaiting release. offer. In March this year, the figure reached a record high of 18.7%, meaning a further 5,690 people will be remanded in custody before their actual sentence begins. That's at least a 50-year high.
There is also a deep structural problem. The number of prisoners being sent back to prison after being released on license or parole has risen to a record high.
In March 2013, 5,140 prisoners were sent back, or 6.1% of the total prison population . reminded. In March of this year, this figure more than doubled to 12,344 people, or 14.1% of prisoners.
The consequences of both abandoned rehabilitation programs and the national housing crisis are laid bare here.
According to the charity Revolving Doors, of all recalls that occurred between October and December last year, 26% were due to repeat offenses and 77% were due to non-compliance, such as failure to contact us. More than a quarter of them were homeless, meaning they couldn't get an address.
In the 1990s, prisoners had housing inspectors who made sure released people had a roof over their heads. These officers no longer exist.
“People are being released from their homes on a regular basis,” says Coomber of the Howard League. “A couple of weeks ago I was in a prison where people are given a tent when they are released. This sets these people up for failure. It would hardly be surprising if people then start reoffending.”
High caseloads and inexperienced staff mean probation officers don't build as good a relationship with the offenders they work with, Rowland adds. “Maybe they're more willing to send people back to prison.”
Fairhurst blames austerity policies for the problem. “[The government] cut our budget by more than £900 million and cut our staff by 30 per cent, resulting in us losing 100,000 years of experience,” he says.
However, since 2015/16 Prison costs began to rise. .
Cash flow was supported by measures to combat the pandemic, but this was short-term. After growing by 5.1% in 2020/21, government spending on prisons fell by 4.3% in 2021/22 to £3.7 billion.
In 2023/24, spending is likely , were still 1.7% below 2009/10 levels. according to IfG.
The problem with the election
Sue Gray, the Labor Party's chief of staff, added prison overcrowding to what has been described as a “black list” of looming crises that the new government will have to urgently address fight.
The looming crisis may have influenced Sunak's decision to call an election in July. Economists had expected the Prime Minister to call an autumn election to give as much time as possible for the economy to improve.
GDP is forecast to rise, real wages will rise as inflation falls and the Bank of England could start cutting interest rates rates this summer.
But the longer anyone waits, the more time there is for Britain's prison crisis to explode. .
Labour is trying to capitalize on the prison crisis.
Shabana Mahmood, the shadow justice minister, blamed overcrowding on “14 years of Conservative failures”. She pledged to “deliver on our mission to raise confidence in the criminal justice system to the highest level within a decade.”
The POA has repeatedly criticized Sunak's government, but Fairhurst remains unconvinced by the Labor Party.
p> “Our secretary-general has met Keir Starmer twice,” he says. “We have met with the Minister of Prisons several times. And I met the shadow secretary of state. They were all evasive. I bet there's nothing about prisons in their manifesto.”
Shabana Mahmood tries to blame overcrowding on Tory failures. Photo: Nicola Tree/Getty Images
Pawan Dhaliwal, chief executive of Revolving Doors, adds: “Labour hasn't said anything yet about what its long-term policy will be.”
The election itself will make the problem worse, Fairhurst warns. Justice Minister Alex Chalk's sentencing bill would be repealed in the run-up to the election, meaning further temporary measures would not be implemented for several months.
Key policies of the bill included the creation of a legal presumption that criminals would not sent to prison for less than 12 months and should instead be punished with community service.
This would save up to 23,000 criminals. has been released from prison, according to analysis by Rory Geoghegan, former No 10 crime adviser and founder of the Community Safety Foundation.
Labor has expressed interest in the policy, which is supported by prison activists who claim they do not want to leave prison. Fixed-term sentences are a major cause of prison overcrowding.
The government had planned to use the bill to allow prisoners to be released after serving just 43% of their sentences, rather than 50%, which would free up additional space. “That won't happen now because of the election,” Fairhurst says.
But these measures will do little to solve long-term problems, says Coomber. “It would reduce capacity by 3-4%, but that in itself would only be a short-term measure,” he adds.
Labour's Mahmood said the party would use new planning rules to build more number of prisons if she wins the election.
The Tories have been trying to solve this problem for years. In 2021, the government said it would spend £3.75 billion to create 20,000 new prison places by the mid-2020s.
By the end of 2023, 5,600 places had been introduced, mainly through two new prisons , which opened in 2022 and 2023 with 3,400 beds.
A third prison for 1,500 people is under construction, but three other projects have been delayed after their planning applications were initially rejected.
Campaigners say this is the wrong approach.
“It’s impossible to get out of this. If you build more prisons, you will fill them up,” says Fairhurst. Most new prisons that are built are privately owned, meaning the construction is funded by taxpayers and the contract is then awarded to a private company. “They profit from people's suffering.”
Funding for new prisons will also only cover construction costs. A prisoner costs the government around £50,000 a year, and an additional 20,000 of that would cost £1 billion a year.
It would be better and more cost-effective for the government to use this money to improve conditions in prisons. to prevent criminals from reoffending, says Coomber.
Even if Labor manages to unlock the planning system, it won't happen fast enough. “It's possible that the new government will have to take really drastic measures to get people out of prison,” says Coomber. That could mean releasing people further early, or granting bail to people who have currently been refused.
But politics aside, the biggest challenge for any new government may simply be the weather. Summer raises a more fundamental issue. Prisons are about to get hot.
“The ventilation in the cells is very poor,” says POA's Rigby. “Stuck behind the door, they get hot and frustrated. And at some point, one of these guys is going to have to open that door.”
Fairhurst says, “If there's going to be unrest, it's going to happen in the summer.”
Recent Comments