October 20, 2006: Police Cells For Prisoners

The Howard League for Penal Reform has condemned the home secretary's decision to use police cells to warehouse prisoners because of the prison overcrowding crisis. Howard League director Frances Crook commented:

"The Home Secretary must take control of the prisons crisis and immediately signal his support for community sentences that reduce re-offending and allow offenders to make amends. Police cells cannot provide services to people who have mental health or drug addiction problems and will not be able to provide safe resettlement. The system diverts police away from their community safety duties. No one benefits from this sort of panic measure and it is only necessary because the home secretary has not been paying attention to the deterioration of penal policy."

"There are currently 10,000 too many men, women and children in our prisons for the number of available places and more than 18,000 are forced to share cells. This profligate use of a failing public service must end. The overwhelming majority of prisoners will go on to commit more crimes and harm more victims and only by a fundamental change of direction can we reduce this appalling re-offending."