2 May 2008 – prison population hits new all-time high of 82,501

The Prison Service announced on Friday 2 May 2008, that the number of people held in custody in England and Wales had risen to a new all-time high of 82,501.

In response to the announcement, Geoff Dobson, deputy director of the Prison Reform Trust, said:

The prison population continues to rise faster than we can build prisons. The only sustainable way to relieve the pressure on our jails is to divert the mentally ill away from prison and use to community punishments where they shown to be more effective. Then, our prisons could actually focus on rehabilitating offenders who need to be locked up and bringing down hopelessly high reoffending rates. 

Lucie Russell, director of SmartJustice said:

Prison numbers continue to soar and yet there is still no long term strategy to tackle the crisis. Prisons are full up with the mentally ill and drug addicts for whom its mainly an expensive way of making them worse. With nearly three quarters of offenders reconvicted within 2 years of leaving prison at a cost of over £40,000 per person per year this just isn’t an effective use of taxpayers money. When is the government to get to grips with this and develop a strategy that stops prison being used as the ultimate social service?