June 19, 2007: Prison Officers Back More Prison Places

Leaders of the Prison Officers' Association have welcomed the announcement of the soon to be Prime Minister Gordon Brown to provide significant finances to provide two thousand extra prison places, by the end of the year.

They are however, still unsure how this will impact on the Prison Service and staff in general. The announcement has been made as the newly established Ministry for Justice is proposing to release two thousand prisoners from over-crowded jails, in an attempt to ease the current prison crisis.

POA General Secretary Brian Caton said:

“The announcement is obviously welcomed, but, we are not aware of the full implications or the impact this will have on the prisons who will have to accommodate the fast build units and extra prisoners that go with these buildings. Whilst it is a fact that in the last ten years around twenty two thousand extra prison places have been created."

"There have not been any new prisons built and the bottom line is that we have simply put two prisoners into a single cell and used fast build units without the extra staff to supervise the increase in prison numbers. The prison service has simply robbed Peter to pay Paul. The ratio of prisoners to staff has significantly increased with the level of cost and bureaucracy spiralling out of control. This new promise has to be fully resourced; the service can not continue to manage on the backs of staff under the guise of efficiency. We only hope it is not too little too late”