Jon Collins, from the CJA discusses the issue

In addition, overcrowding also causes prisoners to be moved around the prison estate, as the prison system attempts to find space near to the appropriate court for prisoners on remand. “Churn”, as this process is known, has a number of negative effects. For vulnerable prisoners in particular, it can result in them being moved, without warning, from jails that they know and where they are known, to a prison where they may feel, and be, less safe.

As a consequence, churn has a significant effect on the prevalence of self-harm and of self-inflicted deaths in custody. Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, has stated that prison overcrowding has contributed to the increase in recent years in the number of prisoners who have committed suicide in prison, while the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, building on evidence from a wide range of expert witnesses, has also identified prison overcrowding as contributing to deaths in custody.

Churn also disrupts education, training, behavioural programmes and drug and alcohol treatment, as prisoners are moved before they can complete courses and programmes. In addition, frequent churn, combined with prisoners being held further from home as a result, damages family relationships, with visits being disrupted, and compromises resettlement work, reducing the prospects for prisoners of securing a job or housing on release. This has significant effects on reoffending, with 74 per cent of prisoners with problems with both employment and accommodation reoffending during the year after custody, compared to 43 per cent of those with no problem with either. So what can be done to tackle the overcrowding problem? Short-term measures to relieve pressure, such as the End of Custody Licence Scheme, are clearly neither appropriate nor effective. Neither is the preferred solution of the Government or the Opposition, who are united in the need to significantly increase prison capacity to deal with the overcrowding crisis. This is misguided. No jurisdiction has successfully built its way out of a prison population crisis. In addition, a prison building programme on this scale should surely be out of the question due to its cost. Spending on prisons has already increased by 42 per cent since 1997 and further increases in capacity and running costs are unsustainable in the current economic climate.

Nonetheless, action on prison overcrowding is long overdue, and must be a priority. Otherwise, any other proposed criminal justice reforms will be hobbled by its effects. What is needed is a package of proposals that would end the current over-reliance on prison and reduce the use of custody overall, designed with the support of sentencers so as not to compromise the independence of the courts. This would reduce prison overcrowding, and free up space and resources in the prison estate to better rehabilitate those people who do need to be there.

Author details Campaign Director, CJA. www.criminaljusticealliance.org/