I PREDICT A RIOT!
Prison bosses warn of overcrowding in jails
TROUBLE: Riots, like those in 1990
at Strangeways nick, could kick off BRITAIN’S full- to- the- brim jails are on the brink of a nationwide breakout of riots after government orders to double the number of lags in cells.
Cost- cutting has led to 16 jails being shut down recently and now staff shortages mean some inmates are being kept in their cells for twice as long as they normally are each day.
Coupled with the directive to turn single cells in to doubles and doubles into triples, experts are warning a summer of major prison disturbances is in the offing.
Crisis
Steve Gillan, general secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association, said: “We have been warning ministers and the National Offender Management Service of this ongoing population crisis when they were closing prisons and allowing experienced prison officers to leave under a voluntary early departure scheme.
“We said they were doing it too quickly and cutting too severely and that this was a crisis that would unfold. It has now done so.”
Mr Grayling has had to contend with a series of prisoner escapes in recent months. He was warned that fears of rioting in jails were increasing due to overcrowding and staff shortages.
“That is the reality of prison life”, Mr Gillan said.
The prison population rose 182 this week to 85,410, up 1,749 on the same time last year. Official projections this year suggested that in a worst- case scenario, the numbers in jail this month would be more than 1,000 lower.
Eoin McLennan- Murray, who is chairman of the Prison Governors’ Association, warned of a “perfect storm” facing the prison system.
“All the planning assumptions are based on smaller population projections,” he said. And chief Inspector of Prisons Nick Hardwick has said “political and policy failure” is behind dangerous overcrowding in the publicly- run jails.
Mr Hardwick told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The situation is extremely serious and I am very concerned.”
Justice Secretary Chris Grayling said he disagreed, saying there are currently 1,000 spare prison places, and he is promising 2,000 new ones by April.