Crowded jails 'threaten public'

By Hugh Levinson
BBC Current Affairs

Anne Owers was appointed Chief Inspector of Prisons in 2001

Overcrowded jails are presenting a threat to the public, the Chief Inspector of Prisons has told the BBC.

Anne Owers said the prison population of 80,000-plus in England and Wales was having a "huge effect", including on the rehabilitation of offenders.

Ms Owers said vulnerable inmates were being shuttled between prisons "like a pinball machine".

Work on reducing suicides over recent years was now being reversed and they are on the increase again, she added.

'Population crisis'

Ms Owers told BBC Radio 4's Law in Action programme that prisons are unable to conduct their crucial work of rehabilitating offenders and preventing them reoffending.

The prisons are absolutely full at the moment Anne Owers Chief Inspector of Prisons

She said one young man had, in the space of a few weeks, been in a young offenders' institution, two courts and three separate prisons.

"That's not population management. That's like a pinball machine. That is not going to prepare that young man for anything better once he comes out of prison," she told the programme.

"So both in terms of vulnerability...and in terms of rehabilitation, the population crisis now is having a huge effect on our prison system and therefore on its ability to protect the public in the long term."

'Care in custody'

She voiced concern about the protection of vulnerable groups of prisoners, such as women and particularly the mentally ill.

She said that for them "prison has become instead of care in the community, we've got care in custody".

More than 80,000 people are in jail in England and Wales

Ms Owers, who was appointed in 2001, said that most of her recommendations in individual prison reports were enacted.

However, she said that it was frustrating that the inspectorate's reports as a whole were not being used as an early warning system to government ministers about wider problems, such as the treatment of prisoners when they first enter the system.

"The prisons are absolutely full at the moment," she said.

"We therefore have prisoners spending their first night, at a time when they are at their most vulnerable, when the majority of suicides happen in those early days, spending their first night in police cells, with none of the kind of protections that good prisons put in place."

'Manifestly unsuitable'

Suicides in custody are now running at about two a week, she said.

The rise in numbers also means that some "manifestly unsuitable" prisons are still in use.

"There was a wing in Norwich prison where the soil stacks were leaking through the walls which was quite unfit for habitation," she said.

"The prison was absolutely delighted when just after one of our inspections it was closed down, every single prisoner moved out.

"And the next week people were moved back in again because the spaces were needed."