New 'super-prisons' to be built
Three "super-prisons" housing about 2,500 offenders are to be built, Justice Secretary Jack Straw announces.

Top judge attacks sentencing laws
Changes to sentencing policy have forced overcrowding in prisons to "critical" levels, the Lord Chief Justice warns

Q&A: Crisis in prisons
What is the state of prisons in England and Wales?

Jails adapted for foreign inmates
The Prison Service has converted two jails so that they hold only foreign national prisoners, it has emerged.

Prison officers back after strike
Jails across England and Wales return to normal as prison officers go back to work after their strike.

Dead after less than a day in prison
Like half of suicides in prison, Wesley McGoldrick was on remand when he died.

How prisons became so busy
The population of prisons in England and Wales has soared, but is it the result of a crime wave or a punishment wave?

Prison teachers 'lose out on pay'
Tutors working in prisons are paid less than their colleagues and have poorer working conditions, a union claims.

Can prison suicides be curbed?
Harold Shipman' suicide could not have been prevented says a report, but what more can be done to stop other prisoners from killing themselves?

The trouble with leaving prison
Five former prisoners on their experience of leaving prison and plans for the future.

A Screw in the system
They spend their day behind the high walls of Her Majesty's establishments. Who becomes a prison officer?

The struggle to stay in touch
A "traditional" family life is out of the question for those left behind when a mother or father goes to jail.

How do you judge offenders' risk?
As another murder case puts the spotlight on the Probation Service, BBC News website ask how offenders are judged a risk?

The 'notorious' jails of Nigeria
Prisons in Nigeria are notorious - inmates crammed into massively overcrowded, dilapidated cells in old prisons, writes the BBC's Alex Last.

Russia's 'crumbling' prison system
Russia jails a greater proportion of its people than any other major country apart from the US.

The world's biggest prison system
About the same time that President Bush was condemning the abuse of prisoners in Iraq as un-American, a year-long inquiry began into the mistreatment of prisoners at home.