Home Department written question – answered at on 2 October 2006.
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what steps he is taking to reduce overcrowding in prisons.
The Government have introduced credible, intensive community sentences, which courts can tailor to individual offenders who might have otherwise receive ineffective short prison sentences. We have also alerted courts to the availability of electronic monitoring to support a curfew imposed as a condition of bail. Courts are being encouraged to use this option instead of a remand in custody in appropriate cases. We are increasing useable operational capacity in prisons by building additional places as part of an ongoing funded building programme, as well as carefully managing accommodation at existing prisons.
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Pauline Campbell
Posted on 10 Oct 2006 7:24 am (Report this annotation)
Fiona Mactaggart's answer [replying for the Home Office] is shameful. Menstruating women are slopping out in jails in 2006; parcels of excrement thrown through cell windows at a men's prison because inmates can't get access to toilets at night [see Chief Inspector of Prisons interview in the New Statesman, 05.06.06, www.newstatesman.com/200606050005] yet Ms Mactaggart says: "we are ... carefully managing accommodation at existing prisons". Does Ms Mactaggart not read prison inspectorate reports?
The Home Office will have to do MUCH better than this if it is to shake off its reputation of not being "fit for purpose".
Quite a few jails not fit for purpose, too. Home Department written answers not up to the mark, either.