April 29, 2005: Prison Population Hits Record High

There are no votes to be had in appearing to be soft on crime, so it may not be a major focus for public debate that the prison population in England and Wales has hit a new record high.

Figures released today by HM Prison Service indicate that we are now imprisoning 75,540 inmates. This figure comprises 71,057 male prisoners and 4,483 female prisoners. The previous record total in the prison population was reached a year ago, in April 2004.

The Useable Operational Capacity of the prison estate is the sum of all prison establishments’ operational capacity minus  1,700 places. This is known as the 'operating margin' and reflects the constraints imposed by the need to provide separate accommodation for different classes of prisoner i.e. by gender, age, security category, conviction status, single cell risk assessment (and also geographical distribution).