Crowded House

 

Pressure on the prison system eased a bit this week, with the population falling by 161 from 85,407 last Friday to 85,246 today. It’s because since Tuesday, it’s been possible for prisoners to be released on Home Detention Curfew (HDC) up to 6 months early rather than the previous four-and-a-half months. Because of the initial backlog of people immediately eligible for the revised electronic tagging scheme, the number on HDC this week – 2,059 - is 239 higher than last week.  The Justice Ministry  expects “a spike of up to 400-450 in the estimated HDC population” over the next two months, which will further help to alleviate demand for prison places.

By how much is not clear, however. About a quarter of people on HDC are referred to the Community Accommodation Service , known as CAS-2. Run by NACRO, CAS-2 provides a place to live for defendants on bail and offenders after release from prison if they lack their own housing.  Increased demand for places for people on HDC could reduce availability of beds for bailees, thereby inflating the already high remand population in custody.  It’s important that plans to increase the number of CAS-2 beds from 650 to 850 are implemented this financial year.

On the supply side, HMP Fosse Way, operated by Serco, received its first prisoners on 29 May, although its Operational Capacity seems initially to be just 20.  Numbers will ramp up over the next year until the Category C prison reaches its full capacity of 1,715. Construction of an additional block with 250 more places will start later in the year.

Prison minister Damian Hinds told MPs that “Some minor construction activity continues on site, with no impact on the prison operation.”  According to the prison’s twitter feed construction was approaching completion in early April .

While these developments should help reduce overcrowding, the government expect prisons to be operating close to capacity for some time yet. Former Justice Secretary Dominic Raab informed the Lord Chief Justice in February that “the volume of cases going through the criminal justice system will result in significant pressure for at least the remainder of this year”. Raab hoped that “keeping the judiciary informed of the pressures in prisons will enable judges to take all relevant factors into account in the daily work of the courts”. When doing just that in a case in March which quoted from Raab’s letter, the Court of Appeal remarked that “it will be a matter for government to communicate to the courts when prison conditions have returned to a more normal state”.

We still have some way to go before that is the case.