Overcrowded prisons are a savage reminder that we’re living in ‘Portakabin Britain’

Editorial: Investment has been so measly that basic infrastructure is constantly close to collapse. There is a sense that ‘nothing works’, and things have been allowed to get run down

In 2018 prison staff staged an unofficial protest over overcrowding and violence (Getty)

Britain’s prisons are full. So full – indeed notoriously overcrowded – are they that the country has finally reached the point where those convicted of some of the most serious offences cannot be locked up and the public kept safe from them.

Rapists and burglars out on bail and awaiting sentencing hearings are to be allowed to roam free for a little longer, because all the authorities can do is postpone their court appointments until such time as sufficient cells can be found to accommodate them.

Other convicted criminals will have to languish in police station custody, which itself creates a problem of what to do with the freshly arrested held in custody. It invites the possibility of emergency portable buildings being installed within prison grounds.