PRT comment: Public Accounts Committee report on prison estate capacity

Commenting on the findings of today’s report on prison estate capacity by the Public Accounts Committee, Mark Day, deputy director of the Prison Reform Trust said:

“This report from the respected Public Accounts Committee highlights how successive governments have piled unsustainable pressures on prisons by legislating for longer sentences while failing to provide for the necessary capacity to match the resulting increase in demand. Chronic underinvestment in the prison estate has led to a mounting maintenance backlog with too many prisoners held in overcrowded and indecent conditions. Unsurprisingly, rates of self-harm and violence have skyrocketed.

“The system is in urgent need of a reset. Without further measures to reduce demand, the estate is predicted to run out of space again as soon as the beginning of next year. The outcome of the forthcoming sentencing review should be the start of a process to bring our use of imprisonment down to a proportionate and sustainable level. Only then can the concerns highlighted in this report begin to be addressed.”