Prison Accommodation: Overcrowding
(asked on 11th December 2017) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many men in prison are cell sharing on the basis of (a) two to a cell designated for one and (b) three to a cell designated for two; and if he will make a statement.
Information on the percentage of prisoners in doubled accommodation (two prisoners held in a cell designed for one) is published as Official Statistics in the Supplementary Tables to the annual Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service Digest on https://www.gov.uk/. This is published alongside information on the overall level of crowding, most of which is made up of doubling, but also includes other forms of crowding, i.e. trebling (typically three held in a cell designed for two) and crowding in dormitories, which are rare. This has been shown below.
| 1998/9 | 1999/00 | 2000/01 | 2001/02 | 2002/03 | 2003/04 | 2004/05 |
Doubling | 18.6 | 19.0 | 17.5 | 18.0 | 20.8 | 22.1 | 22.5 |
Trebling and other crowding | 1.5 | 1.1 | 0.8 | 1.2 | 2.6 | 2.8 | 1.8 |
Total Crowding | 20.0 | 20.1 | 18.2 | 19.2 | 23.3 | 24.8 | 24.3 |
| 2005/06 | 2006/07 | 2007/08 | 2008/09 | 2009/10 | 2010/11 | 2011/12 |
Doubling | 22.1 | 23.1 | 23.6 | 24.2 | 23.6 | 23.3 | 24.1 |
Trebling and other crowding | 1.9 | 1.6 | 1.6 | 1.1 | 1.0 | 0.9 | 1.0 |
Total Crowding | 24.0 | 24.6 | 25.3 | 25.3 | 24.6 | 24.2 | 25.1 |
| 2012/13 | 2013/14 | 2014/15 | 2015/16 | 2016/17 |
Doubling | 23.0 | 23.2 | 24.5 | 23.8 | 23.6 |
Trebling and other crowding | 0.9 | 0.9 | 1.0 | 0.7 | 0.9 |
Total Crowding | 23.9 | 24.1 | 25.5 | 24.5 | 24.5 |
We will always have enough prison places for those sent to us by the courts. Our reforms will close ageing and ineffective prisons and replace them with buildings fit for today’s demands. Our prison estate will have modern prison places that create the physical conditions for Governors to achieve better educational, training and rehabilitation outcomes.