A report out this morning has revealed that the UK’s prison system was just days away from collapsing last year with fewer than 100 places in adult male prisons.
The report by Dame Ann Overs Commissioned by justice secretary Shabana Mahmood in February, found that the system had been in crisis for over eighteen months.
From 2023 onwards, prisons were running very close to the edge of capacity. On three occasions, this was only pulled back at the last minute by the use of early release schemes, gradually decreasing the amount of time many prisoners spent in custody, using powers designed to allow release on compassionate grounds.
Senior officials were so concerned about a potential breakdown in the criminal justice system that an audit was kept of all decisionmaking and documents, in case there was a public or parliamentary inquiry.
The system limped through the summer of 2024, helped by the knowledge that
relief was coming, in the shape of the new government’s pledge to reduce the custodial
element of most standard determinate sentences from 50% to 40%, a
similar measure to the one that had been energetically but unsuccessfully pursued by
the Lord Chancellor in the previous government.
That government had also proposed to suspend most short prison sentences, alongside other measures, in legislation which fell when the general election was called.
The 2022-24 prison capacity crisis was a conjunction of some specific circumstances.
However, it was also a symptom of a systemic and long-running problem: the apparently
irresistible pressure for more and longer prison sentences coming up against the
immovable object of the difficulty, expense and overall effectiveness of building and
running more prisons. In general, population pressure has constrained prisons’ capacity
The Justice Secretary Ms Mahmood said the report “lays bare the disgraceful way the last Conservative government ran our prisons”.
“They added less than 500 cells to the prison estate over 14 years, released over 10,000 prisoners early under a veil of secrecy, and brought our jails close to total collapse on countless occasions.”
Commenting on findings of the Independent Review of Prison Capacity, published today Pia Sinha, chief executive of the Prison Reform Trust, said:
“This welcome report from Dame Anne Owers doesn’t pull any punches. It lays bare the systemic failures behind repeated prison capacity crises, with devastating consequences for victims, prisoners, staff, and the wider justice system. It highlights the urgent need to shift from reactive crisis management to long-term, strategic planning that prioritises rehabilitation and effective community-based alternatives — as recommended by the Independent Sentencing Review.
“Yet even if these measures succeed, prisons will remain under severe pressure in the short term as the population continues to rise. Repairing the damage of recent decades will require sustained focus, investment, and political will to rebuild prison and probation services so they can operate safely and effectively.
“The review’s call for a 10-year strategy to restore capacity in probation and community services is a vital step, recognising their critical role in reducing pressure on prisons.
“This report must be a wake-up call. We cannot afford to indulge in the fantasy that building more prisons will solve this crisis — history shows it won’t. Instead, we must confront the reality: reversing the long-term rise in sentence lengths and investing in rehabilitation are the only sustainable ways forward.”
