Prison overcrowding ‘is to be deplored’

Prison overcrowding ‘is to be deplored’

By: Inside Time

Council of Europe Anti-Torture Committee says: Prison overcrowding ‘is to be deplored’



Following visits to a number of prisons, a delegation of the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture said that prison overcrowding ‘is to be deplored and that too many prisoners continue to spend too much time locked in their cells with little access to any meaningful activities’.

The Council of Europe delegation also expressed ‘serious misgivings’ about the construction of very large prison complexes (Titan prisons), which have historically proven difficult to manage and have been unable to deliver the targeted services required for the various groups within prison.

In previous reports, the Committee had already indicated that cells measuring 8.5m2 or less were acceptable for one person but provide cramped accommodation for two. The vast majority of prisoners in the three prisons visited on this inspection (Manchester, Wandsworth and Woodhill) were doubled-up in cells of 8.5m2 or smaller. It was also the case that there was no screening of the toilet and basin in most of the cells visited in the three prisons.

The Committee noted that 5,000 adult males are serving sentences of less than 6 months. In certain European countries every effort is made to avoid sending people to prison for short periods; as less than six months is considered too short to tackle offending behaviour. Enough time, however, to disrupt social and family ties. Considering the rate of re-offending ‘it would appear that imprisonment is not achieving its purpose in respect to this group. Instead, more might be achieved by providing programmes for this group to serve their sentences in the community’, the Report said.

And in the past 10 years the number of women being sentenced to a term of imprisonment has doubled to nearly 13,000, the majority serving short sentences for theft and dishonesty. The Committee accepted that prisons are not equipped to dealing with their many needs, as evidenced by the 12,938 incidents recorded in 2008 of self-harm.

The average cost to the taxpayer of keeping an adult in prison is a staggering £36,000 a year. On the other hand, community penalties cost between £2,000 and £8,000. Switching funds from prison to drug treatment and other needed support programmes would save money and most especially prevent more people becoming victims of crime.

The Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT). Strasbourg, 8 December 2009.