OVERCROWDED JAILS DRIVE PRISONERS INTO POLICE CELLS

Prisoners were being held in cells at police stations last night for the
first time in more than seven years amid worsening overcrowding in the
nation's jails.

The prison population of England and Wales yesterday reached a record high
level of 71,480 - an increase of 5,000 since January and 10,000 more than
when Labour took office in 1997.

The total is only 170 shy of the system's operational capacity and 14,000
prisoners are sharing single cells.Pressures on jails in the West Midlands
and West Yorkshire were such that remand prisoners and some convicted
offenders had to be put in police cells.

A thousand police cells have been earmarked for possible use in other areas.

A Prison Service spokesman said: "Every effort is being made to avoid the
use of police cells for women and juveniles. The aim will be to hold
individual prisoners for not more than a few days unless they are appearing
regularly at a local court."

The use of police cells, together with "doubling up" in prison, was once
commonplace in the 1980s. However, a succession of riots and a report from
Lord Woolf, now the Lord Chief Justice, prompted a huge building programme
to provide more spaces.

In July 1995, when overcrowding again forced inmates into police cells, the
jail population stood at 52,000. Even more prisons were built and others
extended but even that extra capacity is now insufficient.

The inexorable rise in the prison population will place further pressure on
David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, to find alternatives. Ministers have
already appealed to the courts to use community penalties where possible, a
view backed by Cherie Blair, the Prime Minister's wife, earlier this week.

Mr Blunkett has also extended the home detention curfew system - where
prisoners are let out early and their whereabouts monitored by tagging. He
may be forced to widen the system still further to include a larger number
of more serious offenders.

The most drastic measure would be the release of thousands of prisoners who
had served a certain percentage of their sentence; but this would trigger a
huge political row and look as if the Government had lost control.

Mr Blunkett and other ministers are also accused of sending out confusing
signals to the courts. On the one hand they call for fewer "minor"
offenders to be sent to prison; on the other, politicians cannot resist the
anti-crime rhetoric that the voters want to hear and which judges and
magistrates translate into tough sentences.

Next week, Mr Blunkett is also publishing a criminal justice White Paper
that includes new sentencing policies, including part-time jail and extra
community supervision for short-term prisoners. While these may ease
population pressures, other proposals for harsher sentences for "hard-core"
criminals could push up prison numbers still further.

Given his bruising battle over spending with Gordon Brown, the Chancellor,
it must be unlikely that the Home Secretary can continue to pursue
high-spending policies. The penal system already costs UKP1.7 billion a year.

Penal reformers last night said the system was in crisis. Joe Levenson of
the Prison Reform Trust said: "The emphasis in police cells will be purely
on containment - there will be nothing done to prevent re-offending and the
creation of more victims.

"Frances Crook, of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: "This is the
result of a thoroughly irresponsible government policy."