UK jails 'bursting at seams' as inmates shoved in single cells amid overcrowding
Prisoners are being crammed in single-person cells like "sardines" due to an overcrowding crisis in the UK which could lead to serious risks of re-offending.
Campaigners have warned that prisons could be breaching human rights after it was found that nearly 1,800 inmates had been forced to double up in individual cells in Scotland alone, with ten of the country's jails said to be overcrowded.
Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur, who revealed the figures, highlighted one prison to be running at 140 percent capacity. He warned overcrowding can threaten the safety of staff and the likeliness of a successful rehabilitation. "On the SNP’s watch, most prisons are now bursting at the seams with people being packed in like sardines," he said.
Barlinnie prison is operating at 140 percent capacity (PA)It comes after an investigation in August revealed that lone cells are frequently housing up to three prisoners across England and Wales, according to Observer. Former UK prime minister John Major commented on the investigation and said prisoners are being "held in worse conditions than in Victorian times."
As of July in Scotland, Addiewell and Dumfries prisons had an average occupancy rate of 103 per cent and 110 per cent. The figures for Edinburgh, Glenochil, Greenock, Inverness and Kilmarnock also exceeded 100 per cent. Low Moss was operating at 102 per cent and the figure for Perth was 107 per cent.
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Michael Stoney, the Barlinnie governor, which is operating at 140 percent, previously feared his own prison is so overcrowded that it risks “catastrophic failure”, reports Daily Record. "This prison can't last that much longer," he stressed. "The infrastructure fails consistently. A lot of my time is just trying to keep the prison functional."
Barlinnie prison has a design capacity of 987 but has an average occupancy rate of 1,379. It will be replaced, but it was reported that a Government update on major infrastructure projects had deleted the timings and costs of the scheme. The chief inspector for Scottish prisons Wendy Sinclair-Gieben, recently warned the number of people in custody is projected to soar in the next year.
She said inmate numbers had fallen during the pandemic, but they were likely to go above 8,000 over the coming year. She added: "Put simply, we send far too many people to prison for the limited accommodation and resources available to achieve rehabilitative change. If individuals do not have their risks and needs addressed in prison, the rate of recidivism will remain high, and at significant cost to the public purse."
McArthur said he has been stressing the "serious" issue of overcrowding for years and said: “Ministers, however, appear unable or unwilling to respond to the crisis. The project to replace Scotland’s largest prison, HMP Barlinnie, has become a farce. Earlier estimates, costs and timescales have been abandoned and replaced with a holding statement.
“To ease the mounting pressures on prisons, we would create a properly-funded justice system that can deliver robust and credible community sentences where appropriate. We also need to see a modern prison estate that can strike a balance between punishing, rehabilitating and supporting; that is how we will reduce reoffending and make communities safer.”
Labour MSP Pauline McNeill described the findings as "shocking" and said: “We are at risk of breaching our human rights obligations and failing to comply with international good standards. Failure to expand the prison estate in line with need is also making the jobs of staff more and more difficult.
“While the replacement of HMP Barlinnie will create an additional 300 spaces for prisoners, it is unacceptable that the deadline has now been pushed back further to 2027. This delay is symptomatic of the wider problem facing the majority of prisons across the country.” Tory MSP Russell Findlay commented: “Dangerous overcrowding in Scotland’s jails is a direct result of the SNP ’s failure to properly fund the prison service, build new establishments to deadline and tackle the court backlog."
The Scottish Prison Service’s most up-to-date figures also showed ten prisons operating at more than 100pc capacity. An SPS spokesperson said: “We have a population which is not only rapidly increasing, but also far more complex. The complexity is driven by the increasing proportion of those in our care who have to be accommodated separately due to their legal status (remand or convicted), sex, age or offending history, for example, those with a history of sexual offending and individuals with links to Serious and Organised Crime.
“This complexity is further illustrated by the increase in demand for health and social care services across the prison estate in recent years, partly due to our ageing population. Many of our establishments are full beyond their design capacity. This increasingly restricts our staff’s ability to do the quality work that supports people’s personal development, rehabilitation, and chances of a successful reintegration into the community upon liberation.”
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