Government triggers overcrowded prison crisis measure

May 10, 2024

A crisis measure to ease overcrowding in prisons has been triggered by the government.

‘Operation Safeguard’ allows offenders to be housed in police cells when jails are full.

The government says this is not an unprecedented measure, and is instead a deliberate feature of the system. It has been activated in recent months and was used last year too.

It follows another extension of the End of Custody Supervised License Scheme, another emergency measure which allows prisoners to be freed early, before the end of their sentence, to ease capacity.

When announced by the justice secretary in October, prisoners were to be released up to 18 days before their prison term ended. That has now been amended so that certain offenders can leave prison more than two months, 70 days, early – as of 23 May.

The triggering of Operation Safeguard is yet another sign of prisons being under pressure.

The chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor, yesterday wrote to the justice secretary issuing an ‘urgent notification’ for Wandsworth Prison, following an inspection by the watchdog which raised a number of concerns.

It found severe overcrowding, vermin, drugs, violence and rising self-harm at the Category B jail in southwest London.

The inspection found 80% of prisoners shared cells designed for one person, where most men spent more than 22 hours a day, while in one wing they had been unable to shower for five days.

Wandsworth is England’s second-largest prison, but it is not an isolated case when it comes to overcrowding.

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Figures published at the beginning of the month showed 87,505 people are currently behind bars in England and Wales.

The number of people that can be held in “safe and decent accommodation” in prison, known as the “certified normal accommodation” or “uncrowded capacity”, is considered by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to be 79,507.

That means the current overall system is at 110% capacity, or overcrowded.

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In a statement responding to confirmation that Operation Safeguard has been triggered, a Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “It is helping us respond to acute capacity pressures caused in part by barristers’ industrial action and the aftermath of the pandemic, while we press ahead with delivering the biggest expansion of prison places in a century including six new jails.”

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