Emergency measures to tackle prison overcrowding are a short-term solution to a long-term problem

The Government’s recent announcements of emergency measures to tackle prison overcrowding – Operation Early Dawn and the extension of the End of Custody Supervised Licence (ECSL) scheme – demonstrate the severity of the enduring capacity crisis. We are deeply concerned by the inextricable link between the current capacity crisis and the safety of prisoners and staff. Overcrowding affects the capacity, timeliness, and quality of prisoners’ access to time out of cell, purposeful activity, physical and mental health services, addiction and other therapeutic programmes, and key worker contact – all of which are vital to keeping individuals who are at risk of self-harm and suicide safe.

 While the latest prison deaths data report a welcome 10% decrease in overall deaths in the 12-month period to March 2024, the number of self-inflicted deaths remains worryingly high while the rates of prisoner self-harm and assaults on staff have both increased by 20%. These figures are very troubling and, with the prison estate currently running at around 99% of its usable operational capacity and the majority of prisons officially classified as overcrowded, compound our serious concerns about the impact of overcrowding on the ability of the prison service to keep those under its care safe.

Robust processes must be put in place to understand – with sufficient precision – the likely impact of policy decisions on the prison population, identify and take account of the safety implications of prison population growth for prisoners and staff, and proactively identify necessary action to mitigate adverse safety impacts associated with increases in numbers. Ultimately, we call for the establishment of a non-negotiable redline that custody numbers will never be permitted to exceed safe capacity. We recently raised these concerns in a letter to the Prisons Minister, which you can read here. 

Pauline McCabe OBE, IAPDC member and former Prisoner Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, said:

“Tackling current prison overcrowding and preventing future overcrowding is fundamental to enabling consistent delivery of the regime, effective management and mitigation of risk factors for self-harm and suicide, and optimising rehabilitation. With an increase in the average sentence length by almost 50% between 2012 and 2023, planned increases to maximum terms, and the prison population forecasted to continue to rise to up to 114,800 by March 2028, a step change in decision making processes and a longer-term strategy are urgently needed to ensure the prison service is never pushed to this limit again.”