Governors give warning over cramped jails

RIOTING and chaos could soon engulf Britain's jails if the number of inmates continues to rise, prison governors warned yesterday in an unprecedented attack on the government's penal policy.

Chronic overcrowding in jails was also blamed for hindering many of the current prison reforms. The Prison Governors' Association, at its annual conference near Rugby, yesterday passed an emergency resolution condemning the Government. It also called for new legislation to outlaw overcrowding and proposed putting some violent offenders on prison 'waiting lists' or giving minor offenders, such as debt defaulters, a jail amnesty.

Brendan O'Friel, the association's chairman, told delegates that overcrowding was forcing prisons to send inmates - many of whom had not been convicted - to jails far from their homes and family. This created resentment and unrest and amounted to a term of 'external exile'.

The barrage of unusually outspoken criticism from the senior managers comes as the number of people in custody in England and Wales rose this month to 48,410 - about 1,000 more than places are available - with 386 locked in police cells. The governors yesterday predicted this would rise to 52,000 by the end of the year as the Government's tougher sentencing policy bit. The increase in the prison population, already the highest in Western Europe and rising at a rate of about 450 a week, will be eased as new prisons and wings are opened. During the next five years more than 7,000 extra places will be made available. However, governors argue these will be filled quickly by the rising population. The numbers will be further boosted by the reforms in the Criminal Justice Bill going through Parliament, which emphasises the importance of prison sentences. Prisons in the North-west and Midlands are already under extreme pressure, with 11 jails holding more than double their official capacity.

In the keynote conference speech, Mr O'Friel, who was the governor at Strangeways prison during the 1990 riot, said: 'If the rise in the prison population continues, the whole criminal justice system could be plunged into chaos. . . the risks we will have to face of further disturbances are fast becoming unacceptable.

'The prison system should not be overcrowded. It brings no benefit to prisoners, it brings no benefit to staff. Most importantly of all, it brings no benefit at all to the public. Overcrowded prisons are unhealthy places, far more likely to turn out embittered, hardened and contaminated individuals.'

He emphasised that one of Lord Woolf's key proposals in his report on the 1990 Strangeway riots was to try to end overcrowding. He said that programmes to refurbish old prison cells, build new ones, and end slopping out were being postponed as money was diverted to cope with a rising number of inmates.

The association urged members to 'challenge the ill-considered penal policy of the present government' and for the National Executive Committee to enter into negotiations with the Prison Service to prevent 'gross overcrowding'.

Mr O'Friel supported recommendations by Lord Woolf that would force the Home Secretary to obtain Parliamentary approval every three months if a prison consistently had too many inmates.

Derek Lewis, Prison Service director general, said that as long as the increase in the prison population did not accelerate further, jails would be manageable and the penal reforms would not be put at risk.

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