History > 2006 > UK > Prison (IV-VI)

Public to be sold shares

in new prisons

'Buy-to-let' scheme planned
to fund building of 8,000 new jail places

Friday December 1, 2006
Guardian
Alan Travis, home affairs editor

The public are to be offered the chance to purchase shares in new prisons under a "buy to let" scheme being considered by the Home Office, it emerged yesterday.

The idea has been floated in an attempt to overcome the refusal of the chancellor, Gordon Brown, to find the extra money needed for 8,000 new prison places at a time when the service is at breaking point.

Home Office finance directors, who are looking for alternative ways of funding the next wave of new prisons, hope that the public can be tempted to invest in a new-style property company that would build jails and then rent them out to private prison operators. This would provide a steady guaranteed dividend from the "rental income".

One incentive for small investors is that the government's punitive penal policy has seen prison numbers rise relentlessly over the past 10 years and would appear to guarantee a steady stream of rental income with no apparent shortage of prison "tenants".

The prison population in England and Wales passed the 80,000 mark for the first time this week, with 85 of the 139 prisons in England and Wales officially declared to be overcrowded. The Home Office confirmed last night that it was considering a number of proposals, but the probation officers' union described the "buy to let" scheme as absurd.

The home secretary, John Reid, is under severe pressure to find the new prison places, but a standstill budget for the Home Office for the foreseeable future means it could take several years to fund and build the new prisons, all of which are to be privately run.

Over the summer the home secretary said he had won cabinet backing for 8,000 extra prison places, with 4,000 to be provided in existing jails and a further 4,000 in three "super-prisons" each housing 1,300 inmates, double the normal capacity. The model uses "real estate investment trusts" (Reits) which are to be launched by the Treasury in January and will enjoy tax exemptions.

They are designed to encourage a wider range of investors in property. This model has already been used in the United States by the Corrections Corporation of America to finance several new privately run jails. According to a Home Office source quoted by Building magazine, finance officials will be considering the option over the coming weeks.

Under the proposed system, the prison operator would rent the facility from the Reit and the income would be channelled back to the investors. Private prison contracts tend to be long-term in Britain, with 25-year leases common.

A Home Office spokeswoman said final decisions had not been made about providing the extra 8,000 prison places; she confirmed that the government was considering proposals for funding their construction through a number of means.

Harry Fletcher of Napo, the probation officers' union, said: "The Treasury has refused to finance a conventional prison-building programme so Mr Reid is having to go to extreme lengths to find the money. Under this scheme shareholders would have a vested interest in seeing that the jails were full as the more rent that would come in, the higher the dividends."

He said it was an absurd proposition and wondered what safeguards there would be to ensure that organised crime networks did not invest heavily and buy up the new jails.

    Public to be sold shares in new prisons, G, 1.12.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/prisons/story/0,,1961501,00.html

Soaring prison population

sparks safety fears

Published: 30 November 2006
The Independent
By Nigel Morris, Home Affairs Correspondent

John Reid has been warned that the safety of the public and prison officers is being put at risk by record levels of jail overcrowding.

The prison population hit a grim landmark yesterday as the number of people behind bars in England and Wales reached 80,000 for the first time.

The prison population has been rising remorselessly as courts jail more people for relatively minor offences, while longer sentences are being handed out for more serious crimes. It stood yesterday at 80,060, with 79,908 inmates in jail and another 152 being held in police stations under emergency plans ordered last month by the Home Secretary.

There are just 249 spare spaces in jails anywhere, with prison chiefs being forced to bus newly sentenced offenders around the country. The problem is particularly acute in London, the South-east and the North-west.

The record high was announced as Mr Reid held talks in the Home Office with criminologists and penal campaigners on how to get a grip on the situation.

The Home Secretary faced criticism over the direction of penal policy in the meeting, being warned that the atmosphere in some jails was so tense that the safety of prison officers was being jeopardised.

He was told that the amount of rehabilitation work with inmates was suffering because of overcrowding, with the result that they were more likely to reoffend upon release. Ministers also faced pleas to rebuild the credibility of community sentences, both in the eyes of the public and courts, and to investigate other ways of treating mentally ill offenders.

An extra 2,600 people have been locked up over the past year, and the prison population - the highest in western Europe - is almost 20,000 higher than when Labour came to power.

The Home Office, which has announced a programme to open 8,000 extra prison places by 2012, said: "The National Offender Management Service closely monitors the prison population, which fluctuates on a daily basis, and continues to investigate options for providing further increases in capacity."

Edward Garnier, the Conservative home affairs spokesman, accused the Government of "reckless management" of the prison system. He said: "It has patently failed to address the alarming lack of capacity in our prisons despite warnings from the Conservatives and others."

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "The overcrowding crisis in our prisons is like watching a train crash in slow motion. We have been warning the Government for years that its policy of mass incarceration is wholly unsustainable."

Geoff Dobson, deputy director of the Prison Reform Trust, said the population had "accelerated through the 80,000 barrier, not as a result of any strategy or planning, but because criminal justice policy has become a party political auction at the taxpayer's expense."

Ministers are casting around for alternative emergency accommodation for offenders after they abandoned plans to convert a former army barracks near Dover into prison spaces.

They have ruled out releasing any inmates early, but could be forced to let out hundreds of foreign national prisoners who have completed their sentences but are awaiting deportation in jail.

Extra places could be bought in police cells, although that option is hugely expensive for the Home Office.

    Soaring prison population sparks safety fears, I, 30.11.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2026817.ece

Inmates verdicts:

'Nothing to do

except sink further

into the system

and depression'

A place to rehabilitate offenders?
Or does prison breed more crime?
Inmates give their verdicts

Published: 30 November 2006
The Independent

Nigel

Serving prisoner in HMP The Verne

"There's nothing to do here all morning except drink tea, read, write letters and watch telly, watch the clouds go by and sink further into the system and depression.

"Highlight of the day is collecting the post. Letters are so important and get read over and over again, a precious link to the outside world and my sanity.

"This is my first experience of prison, and I hate each and every day. It is degrading, inhumane and soul destroying. The system does next to nothing to turn out better people. In this place resettlement is a joke. The whole prison regime is about containment and punishment - it's no wonder there is such a high reoffending rate.

"I despise what prison is doing to me, making me cynical and hard, making my family suffer the same.

"I am lucky. I have a supportive family, a job to go out to, a loving wife and son who are behind me 100 per cent.

"The prison does nothing to help; shows little or no regard for me as a person of worth. My experience is that prison breeds crime. I now know more about crime than I thought possible. I sit and listen to jobs being organised for after people's release, how to beat confiscation orders, where to obtain drugs, arms, etc. I can't believe what I am told.

"There are lads who want to go straight but the prisons do not help them, or trust them so they return."

Mike

Serving prisoner in HMP Wayland

"I work as a cleaner on the wing. At least I'm doing something to occupy my mind. It would drive me mad if I was doing nothing with my time in prison.

"I have felt a bit down, but I can cope a lot better now. Looking back I think I have done really well with myself and I haven't self-harmed for nearly a year now.

"This jail can be so boring. There isn't a lot going on, but you have to make do with what's on offer.

"I haven't seen my mum for two years, she can't travel this far, nor can my wife who I have only seen twice in 14 months. I think it's out of order that we're stuck out in the middle of nowhere. I used to see my wife every week before I came here."

Chris Streeks

Former prisoner, now a campaigner for Smart Justice

"I dropped out of education at 13 and began shoplifting and ended up in a detention centre at 14, borstal at 15, and I was arrested for murder at 16 even though I didn't do it and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"As far as prison life goes, it did not make me better at all. I had to do it all myself. They end up moving you around a lot because of the overcrowding so I had to wait for years to get to a prison that could address my drug problem. Prison is not the right place to address problems because you don't feel safe. It's such a hostile environment. I was assaulted in prison.

"They give you a letter when you leave which basically suggests you're unemployable, so the system's setting you up to fail. Fortunately, I came out and got a scholarship to a summer course in drama, because of my passion for acting. I've also written a book called Letters to a Young Person and I do work with youngsters so they get the help that I didn't."

Frank

Serving prisoner in HMP Birmingham

"I find prison a prison of the mind mostly. I was afraid of being beaten up and treated like shit by the guards, but... the staff on the wing have been excellent. I find the mental stress the most difficult. Television is a big problem for me. I wouldn't normally watch much and I find it gets to me - builds up tensions that I cannot get rid of."

Yvonne Scholes

Son, Joseph, 16, found hanged in Stoke Heath YOI in 2002

"Joseph is one of 28 children to die in custody since 1990. Three, aged 14, 15 and 16, have died. If this had been a death in social services there would be an outcry. The fact that my son died at the hands of a different state body should make no difference. Everybody involved in Joseph's care, all the authorities, believed he should not have received a custodial sentence. He was a wonderful child. I loved him dearly, but he was very disturbed with mental health problems and he required a safe environment."

Pauline Campbell

Daughter, Sarah, 18, died of an overdose in HMP Styal in 2003

"Warehousing mentally ill people in prisons is indefensible. Severely depressed, [Sarah] died the day after arriving at Styal prison. It may not be madness, but it is symptomatic of a government devoid of compassion. It is worrying when the madness leads to bizarre decision-making and an obsession with the need to appear 'tough'."

'Marjorie'

Serving prisoner in HMP Peterborough

"I've been in prison for five weeks and this coming weekend my daughter is coming to visit. It will be the first time I have seen anyone from the outside and I am very apprehensive. Part of me doesn't want visits.

"I get locked up all day. I was working on a previous wing but got badly bullied and had to be moved for my own safety - those girls are still working and I'm not. Today I was able to chat to some of my neighbours on the upstairs landing. We discussed visits, going grey and grandchildren.

"I spend a lot of time looking at the photos of my grandchildren which are stuck on the wall with toothpaste. There is also a photo of my dad, my significant other and my last dog. Oh, and a copy of the prayer of St Francis."

Anne Brown

Married to Aaron, a serving prisoner in HMP Stafford

"The worst thing is the distance. I have two children, a son and a daughter, and it's so difficult to go and see him.

"It's such a nightmare visiting him, travelling up there from London and back takes 12 to 13 hours, I have to get four trains and taxis, and it costs well over £100. At one point, I couldn't see him for 16 months. He has applied to move prison 12 times. We are not as close as we used to be even though he tries to phone home twice a week, but sometimes gets cut off half way through because calls are expensive."

Geoff Ikpoku-Johnson

Former prisoner, now runs a company driving families to see prisoners

"Prison is like a human zoo. You are in this cell and the officers come and lock and unlock you. They are supposed to be these figures you can approach with your problems but they don't care about you.

"I went in at the age of 18. I found it a bullying atmosphere at that age. When I came out, I realised I had learnt nothing inside. I felt like 'wow, I've been in prison - I've got street cred!'.

"You come out of prison and you are so angry. You come out with the same problems you walked in with and you want to do something a lot of damage."

The alternatives to prison

Fines

The use of fines declined in the late 1990s, as courts opted for community sentences or even prison instead. The National Audit last year reported little more than half (52%) of a sample of 600 offenders paid in full within six months of conviction.

Community Service

Almost everyone agrees these should be imposed on more minor offenders, but the problem is convincing courts of their effectiveness. Research on the Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme discovered a 91% reoffending rate. The Home Office countered that the number of offences committed by its "graduates" fell from 11 to seven.

Tagging

More than 2,500 offenders are currently on release on electronic tags under the Home Detention Curfew (HDC) scheme.

Supporters argue tags facilitate rehabilitation, but last month the Home Office admitted 1,021 serious offences had been committed by prisoners freed early since the HDC launch in 1999.

Mental Health Treatment

John Reid has acknowledged there are people inside prison who should not be there. Providing alternative treatment would require extra investment in community mental health, healthcare places and halfway houses.

Hostels For Women

A total of 4,445 women are in jail in England and Wales, most for petty offences such as shoplifting, fraud or drug use. One third have no previous convictions. Women-only bail hostels would enable mothers to keep in touch with their children.

Nigel Morris

    Inmates verdicts: 'Nothing to do except sink further into the system and depression' , I, 30.11.2006, http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2026818.ece

Delayed:

the food study

that could cut prison violence

by 'up to 40%'

Tuesday October 17, 2006
Guardian
Felicity Lawrence

The Home Office has been accused of delaying new research that aims to reduce violence in Britain's overcrowded prisons by up to 40%. The former chief inspector of prisons, Lord Ramsbotham, said yesterday that the department was guilty of "breathtaking prevarication" over a proposed trial to improve prisoners' nutrition, which he believes would dramatically reduce offending behaviour in jails.

Prisons in England and Wales were full last week, with a record number of nearly 80,000 prisoners. Better nutrition would have a "huge impact" on prison life, Lord Ramsbotham said. "If the correct mix of diet reduces offending behaviour - and I am absolutely convinced there is a direct link between diet and antisocial behaviour - it's hugely important for prisoners, it frees up staff time for rehabilitation."

Earlier scientific work conducted by the charity Natural Justice, of which Lord Ramsbotham is a trustee, demonstrated a causal link between bad diet and the number of violent incidents at Aylesbury young offenders' institution. In a double blind placebo controlled trial, the number of incidents dropped when prisoners were given multivitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids.

Since the study was published in 2002, the charity and researchers at Oxford University have been trying to get the go-ahead to repeat the trial on a larger scale at other prisons. They have secured more than £1m funding from an independent research charity, and the prison service confirmed that it had identified two prisons to take part, but the work has been blocked by delays at the Home Office, Lord Ramsbotham told the Guardian. The Dutch government has conducted a study giving prisoners nutritional supplements.

"It would cost roughly £3.5m to give the correct balance of nutrients, either through proper diet or supplements across the prison service. For that you could have up to 40% reduction in violent behaviour. So why isn't the Home Office embracing it?" Lord Ramsbotham said.

A National Audit Office report in March 2006 found that prison catering had reduced its costs while improving standards since 1997, but noted that government recommendations on healthy diets were only "partially" met and prisoners often made poor choices of food so they did not get a balanced diet.

A spokesman for the Home Office said all research was subject to approval by the department's project quality approval board. The government was committed to offering all prisoners a healthy diet and provided at least one low-fat, low-sugar option on every menu. "The NAO report makes very clear that meals offer recommended levels of vitamins and minerals," he added.

    Delayed: the food study that could cut prison violence by 'up to 40%', G, 17.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,1924119,00.html

Foreign prisoners will be offered cash to go home

· Reid unveils package to ease jail overcrowding
· Opposition parties condemn move as bribe

Tuesday October 10, 2006
Guardian
Will Woodward, chief political correspondent

A sweeping range of incentives to persuade foreign prisoners to go home was unveiled last night by John Reid, the home secretary, in an attempt to defuse the jail overcrowding crisis.

Prisoners from countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA ) - which comprises the 25 EU nations plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein - will be offered a package worth between £500 and £2,500 to go home, rather than face detention while they are considered for deportation. Others will be encouraged to serve the remainder of their sentences in jails in their home countries.

"It costs £37,000 a year to keep someone in prison. It's a lot cheaper than keeping them in prison," said one Home Office official. The Home Office stressed last night that the incentives were not a cash handout. "The support will take the form of education, accommodation, medical care, training, or assistance with starting a business," a statement said.

Mr Reid also in effect gave the green light to foreign prisoners from inside the EEA to stay in the UK at the end of their sentences - in the short term at least - by announcing that the Home Office would no longer contest appeals against deportation. This move in effect quickens their release by abandoning the detention of prisoners held while deportation is considered. The government has been defeated by EEA nationals in several cases in the courts. In the longer term Mr Reid promised he would change the law "to strengthen the link between criminality and deportation" and ensure the government won more cases.

As expected, the home secretary announced a return to 2002's Operation Safeguard, under which up to 500 prisoners will be held in police cells. The Metropolitan police and 18 other forces have agreed to take prisoners. Mr Reid said the scheme was "not ideal, but it is tried and tested". The home secretary told the Commons that the prison population yesterday stood at 79,819, slightly down on the weekend figure but only 234 short of the newly calculated limit on prison capacity of 80,053.

"Why do we have to have a crisis to get action out of this government?" David Davis, the shadow home secretary, demanded. Mr Reid insisted that the government had the situation under control, but the system faced short-term pressures, he said, created by the introduction of tough new sentences in the 2003 Criminal Justice Act and his initial decision to refuse to release foreign prisoners at the end of their sentence before they had been considered for deportation.

The government says that by December a converted army barracks in Dover will provide an extra 200 prison places. A former secure hospital in Ashworth, near Liverpool, will soon offer a further 350 places. Mr Reid said that two women's prisons are to take male prisoners, on the advice of the Prison Service.

The Liberal Democrats accused Mr Reid of offering a "bribe" to foreign prisoners. Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman, said: "What has the home secretary been doing for the last six months if his efforts to solve the foreign prisoner crisis now amount to a vague pledge to sort the problem out by next spring, and an even vaguer plan to bribe them to go back home?"

Mr Davis said: "By definition, these are not people who you can trust to be honest. Have we got the border controls to make this work? The answer is no. How will we stop these people ripping off the taxpayer and coming back?"

There are about 8,000 prisoners from outside the EEA in jails in England and Wales. Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said Mr Reid's statement "amounts to nothing more than a ragbag of desperate measures that at best will buy a few weeks' respite".

Main points

· Police cells to be used to house up to 500 prisoners

· Packages worth up to £2,500 for prisoners from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) to return home

· Appeals against deporting prisoners from EEA countries no longer contested

· More inmates to go to open prisons

· 200 prison places to be created by December in a converted army barracks

· Two women's jails to take men

· Former secure unit in Liverpool to be converted into a prison

· Encouragement of courts to use electronic tagging rather than prisons

· Greater use of community punishments

· 8,000 extra prison places by 2012

    Foreign prisoners will be offered cash to go home, G, 10.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/prisons/story/0,,1891543,00.html

5pm

Reid sets out plan to tackle prison crisis

Monday October 9, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Matthew Tempest, political correspondent

Police cells will start housing convicts from Thursday as part of an attempt to head off the crisis in prison capacity, the home secretary said today.

In a series of urgent measures announced on the first day MPs returned to Westminster, John Reid promised to convert former army barracks and a former secure hospital to boost capacity, after jail numbers reached their peak level this week.

But the Tories condemned the situation as a "catastrophe facing the country", and condemned Mr Reid as "lackadaisical and slow to act".

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, challenged Mr Reid across the despatch box in the Commons, saying that putting prisoners in police cells would be "costly and probably counterproductive".

The Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, said: "Public safety is at stake because of government incompetence. These are stopgap measures which beg more questions than answers."

In a busy first day back for Mr Reid - he also announced that the identity cards scheme would be rolled out over the next ten years at a cost of £5.4bn - the home secretary told MPs in an emergency statement that two women's prisons are now to take male prisoners.

Mr Reid said that the current high prison population of 79,819 was due in part to increased use of indeterminate sentences to keep dangerous people in jail longer and in part to the decision not to release foreign prisoners until they were considered for deportation.

Mr Reid informed MPs that negotiations were under way to convert a former army barracks and the former secure hospital Ashworth East into prisoner accommodation.

In addition, 300 places are to be added to those used by the immigration service by next March, with a further 400 following by 2008.

The home secretary told MPs that the law is to be changed to make the deportation of criminals easier and that incentives are to be offered to persuade prisoners to return voluntarily to their own countries. "Maximum flexibility" will be provided for transfers to open prisons, focusing on lower-risk offenders, he said.

Mr Reid said that he will implement the formal use of police cells - known as "Operation Safeguard" - to hold convicts from October 12.

Mr Davis told the Commons that the crisis had arisen because the government was "derelict in its duty to protect the public".

He also warned that moving prisoners to open jails will involve "sanctioning an increase of risk to public safety".

Mr Reid began by saying that, despite advice recommending it, he had ruled out freeing prisoners early as part of his emergency plans.

In the last overcrowding crisis in 2002, David Blunkett, then the home secretary, made room by twice extending the "home detention curfew" electronic tagging scheme to allow prisoners to be freed early.

Using police cells cost the prison service more than £360 per prisoner per night under Mr Blunkett.

The Home Office is due to issue updated figures for the prison population for England and Wales after it hit an all-time high on Friday at 79,843, in theory leaving just 125 spare places for new inmates.

The figure dropped slightly over the weekend, said a Home Office spokeswoman, but she refused to reveal the jail population total, saying that the figure was only published on a weekly basis.

Nacro, the crime reduction charity, called on Mr Reid to issue a circular to courts asking for restraint in the use of imprisonment.

The group's chief executive, Paul Cavadino, said: "The government should follow the lead of a previous home secretary 26 years ago when a prison officers' dispute led to jails refusing to admit prisoners.

"The then-home secretary, William Whitelaw, issued a circular to courts asking for restraint in the use of imprisonment for less serious offenders and remand prisoners.

"The courts responded positively and the numbers in custody fell by 4,000 in three months.

"Similar action now would reduce the need to resort to the wholly undesirable option of using police cells to hold prisoners."

He added: "Low-risk offenders near the end of their sentences could be released to supervised accommodation run by voluntary organisations.

"This would be much more likely to reduce reoffending than holding prisoners in police stations, which have no facilities for education, rehabilitation or drug treatment."

Although the government has a building programme to create another 8,000 prison places, they will not come into use until 2012.

At the weekend a confidential memorandum was leaked, disclosing that Mr Reid was prepared to "take the risk" that there would be more prison escapes as a result of the scheme.

The briefing memo by Fiona Radford, Governor of Ford open prison in west Sussex, dated August 3, disclosed that secure prisons had been ordered to identify inmates who could be transferred to open conditions.

Ms Radford said that she had warned the director-general of the prison service, Phil Wheatley, that "almost inevitably" there would be more escapes from open jails, but he had made clear that ministers had accepted this was a price they would have to pay.

Gerry Sutcliffe, the junior home office minister, insisted that no violent or sexual offenders would be transferred to less secure jails and that all inmates would be assessed to ensure that they were not a risk to the public before being moved.

    Reid sets out plan to tackle prison crisis, G, 9.10.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1891377,00.html

4pm

Q&A: prison overcrowding

Monday October 9, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
Matt Weaver

How bad is the crisis?

The prison population is at an all time high of 79,843. This is just 125 places short of the official limit, with numbers rising at about 50 a day.

The prison population has almost doubled since 1993 when it stood at 41,600. Campaigners say we are rapidly heading for "gulag Britain".

They point out that overcrowding in jails is worse than the figures suggest, with only 70,945 certified places and 18,000 prisoners forced to share a cell.

Why are prisons so full?

Campaigners blame political posturing from ministers who, they say, are keen to be seen to be getting tough on crime.

They claim that judges have been under pressure to issue custodial sentences.

They also say that as prisons have got more overcrowded a vicious circle has developed.

The rehabilitation of prisoners is more difficult in packed jails, they claim, and so re-offending rates increase, and jails become fuller still.

What's the solution?

In the short term there are a number of quick fixes open to the home secretary, John Reid.

He has already ruled out releasing prisoners early to free up spaces.

This leaves using police cells to cope with the overspill and transferring more prisoners to open prisons.

What's wrong with that?

Using prison cells costs £360 per prisoner per night. The last time this option was used, in a similar crisis in 2002, it cost the government millions of pounds.

It would also reduce space available to hold suspects arrested by the police.

What about open prisons?

A leaked memo from the governor of Ford open prison, warned that transferring prisoners would make more escapes "almost inevitable".

This is a risk the Home Office is apparently willing to take to solve the crisis.

Is the government building more prison places?

Yes, there is a programme to build an extra 8,000 prison places, but most won't be available until 2012.

However ministers reckon that they can secure an extra 1,000 places by the new year, by converting army barracks into jails.

What other options are available?

Transferring up to 11,000 foreign prisoners to jails in their native countries.

But that won't be easy; talks on the issue with EU ministers broke down last week.

What's the long-term solution?

Many, including the Lord chief justice Lord Phillips, say that the government should make greater use of community sentences.

They are cheaper and reduce re-offending by 14%, according to the Howard League for Penal Reform.

The Prison Reform Trust has set out a seven-point plan to reduce overcrowding.

It includes greater use of community sentences, and calls for better treatment for people with mental illness so that they do not end up in jail and more drug treatment programmes.

    Q&A: prison overcrowding, G, 9.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1891332,00.html

Reid prepares for emergency measures to ease pressure on prisons as only 125 places remain

· Police cells to be used as intake reaches 50 a day
· Home secretary accepts there will be more escapes

Monday October 9, 2006
Guardian
Will Woodward, chief political correspondent

The home secretary, John Reid, is to unveil emergency measures to hold inmates, including the use of police cells, as the prison system nears the limits of its capacity.

A statement may come as early as today. Figures released at the weekend showed there were 79,843 prisoners in England and Wales, 125 short of the official limit, with the number rising at about 50 a day. "The figures are going up through the roof," Gerry Sutcliffe, the justice minister, admitted last night.

Mr Reid has accepted the need to return to 2002's Operation Safeguard, when prisoners were kept in police station cells over a six-month period. He has ruled out freeing some prisoners early under an executive release scheme, despite a recommendation to that effect from officials.

But ministers acknowledged yesterday that they were looking at moving more inmates to open prisons. A memo leaked to the Sunday Times suggests that Mr Reid accepts this would mean more escapes in the short term. Fiona Radford, governor of Ford open prison in West Sussex, told her staff that Phil Wheatley, the head of the Prison Service, had reported that an increase in the "number of absconds [was] accepted as inevitable by JR", with JR meaning John Reid.

Officials acknowledge that moving prisoners to open facilities increases the chances of escape. About two a week have walked out in the last five years. But in a series of interviews yesterday Mr Sutcliffe denied the rate would go up. "Everybody who has to be moved has to be risk-assessed, and those people have got to be looked at in terms of danger to the community. We're saying no sex offenders and no violent offenders have got to be recategorised," he said on BBC Radio Five Live.

Mr Sutcliffe acknowledged that other prisoners, possibly including burglars or muggers, could be reclassified from category C to D. "We've got to ask ourselves why in the UK we have a higher prison population per head of population than anywhere else in Europe," he told Sky News. The public wanted tougher sentences for violent and sexual offenders, he said. But Mr Sutcliffe welcomed the intervention of the lord chief justice, Lord Phillips, who yesterday called for the greater use of community punishments.

"It's madness spending £37,000 a year [jailing someone] when by spending much less on services in the community you can do as good a job," Lord Phillips told the Observer after spending a day on a community "payback" project by posing as a convicted drink-driver.

One source close to ministers' thinking said the 2003 Criminal Justice Act was meant to deliver heavier sentences for violent and sexual offences and at the same time encourage courts to use non-custodial sentences for less serious crime. But magistrates and judges had been reluctant to pursue the latter, the source said.

Lord Phillips said in yesterday's interview that "courts will not use non-custodial sentences unless they are persuaded the services are there, and properly resourced".

Other options being considered by Mr Reid include the transfer of some foreign prisoners to immigration centres, though officials acknowledge the centres are themselves struggling to cope. The home secretary is also negotiating with EU ministers for a prisoner exchange, though even if this were carried out in full it would make a dent of only around 200 in the prison population.

In the medium term, the government believes it can deliver an extra 1,000 prison places by the new year, with ministers committed to another 7,000 after that. Plans include the conversion of Connaught barracks near Dover, which Mr Sutcliffe visited on Thursday.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: "Our prisons are so overcrowded that not only are offenders being released early but those offenders who are in prison are not receiving proper rehabilitation. They are simply shunted around before they have any chance of completing drug rehabilitation or training courses ... It beggars belief that John Reid is prepared to compound this risk by accepting more prisoners absconding from prison."

FAQ: Crowded jails

Why are prisons so full?

The prison population in England and Wales has risen from 41,600 in 1993 to 79,800 now. The number of people convicted has increased from 1.7m in 1993 to 1.8m in 2004. Perhaps more importantly, courts have become increasingly prepared to use custodial sentences. Another factor is a 250% rise in the number of offenders recalled to custody after breaching the terms of their release, from 3,182 in 2000-01 to 11,081 in 2004-05.

What happens now?

Ministers are waiting to hear from the Prison Service that it needs extra steps to be taken. The number of prisoners has been rising steadily for weeks and by Saturday was 125 short of its official limit. But the Howard League for Penal Reform says jails are already overcrowded.

What will the government do?

Housing prisoners in police cells is the most likely short-term measure, not least because this has been done before - in 2002. In the long term Labour wants to deliver another 8,000 prison places, half from private security companies. The government also wants to encourage greater use of non-custodial sentences, but is treading warily: the Tories argue this will lead to some violent offenders escaping from prison.

    Reid prepares for emergency measures to ease pressure on prisons as only 125 places remain, G, 9.10.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1890980,00.html

Madness of dustbin jails - by Lord Chief Justice

· Judge 'turns convict' to reveal failures
· Reid to announce crisis rescue plan

Sunday October 8, 2006
The Observer
Mary Riddell and Jamie Doward

England's most senior judge has launched an unprecedented attack on the country's creaking prison system, which he says is now so overcrowded that it is 'difficult or impossible' to rehabilitate prisoners.

In an exclusive interview in today's Observer, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, the Lord Chief Justice, who is responsible for giving the views of the judiciary in England and Wales to the government, acknowledges jails are often used as little more than 'social dustbins' to house people with problems.

Phillips argues it is 'madness to spend £37,000 jailing someone when, by spending much less on services in the community, you can do as good a job'. He is highly critical of what he sees as the underfunding of community-based punishments and calls for better resources. 'It's no answer just to put more and more people in prison,' he said.

The Lord Chief Justice describes how, in an unprecedented move, he passed himself off as a convicted drink-driver and secretly served part of a community order, doing manual labour with convicted criminals to prove that tough non-custodial sentences should be imposed on many offenders now sent to prison.

His actions have been thrown into sharp relief by the population crisis now gripping Britain's prisons. The Observer understands that the Home Secretary, John Reid, will tell Parliament possibly as early as tomorrow that he is activating Operation Safeguard, an emergency plan to place prisoners in police cells.

Phillips said: 'Emergency measures of keeping prisoners in police cells are highly undesirable.'

Safeguard was last activated between July and December 2002, when some 28,650 prisoners were housed in police stations at an average cost of £360 per place per night. The total cost of the operation came to more than £10m and met with opposition from chief constables who privately expressed dismay that their officers were being used as jailers.

However, the move will buy the Prison Service only a few months' breathing space, The Observer understands. Privately senior officials in the Home Office have told Reid that the use of the cells will handle the overspill only until Christmas, after which the system will be plunged into further crisis.

This weekend the Prison Officers' Association said Britain's jails were now full. The official population stood at 79,843 on Friday evening - just 210 below what the government believes is the maximum capacity. But the association said the government's assessment of available cells included 114 places in HMP Pentonville in north London, 56 in HMP Liverpool, and a number elsewhere that were no longer usable.

'We are already full,' said Steve Gough, the association's vice-chairman. 'The government has known this was coming for two years, but they've done absolutely nothing. It's disgraceful.

Gough suggested that, based on current trends, the prison population could rise to as much as 90,000 by the end of next year.

The government is looking to convert an army barracks and possibly a mental hospital into new open prisons to increase the size of the prison estate. However, experts believe that this would not be nearly enough if the current sentencing trends continue.

Instead, they suggest the Home Office will have to look at alternatives to prison such as the sort of community sentence performed by Phillips, an idea the Home Secretary has so far resisted.

'Reid is presiding over a prison system in meltdown,' said Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform. 'This waste management approach of recycling offenders through overcrowded jails will ultimately prove to be counterproductive,' said Enver Solomon, deputy director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College, London.

The debate on sentencing is likely to be given dramatic impetus by Phillips's decision to experience a community punishment at first hand. In his interview today the Lord Chief Justice describes how he posed as a shipping solicitor sentenced to 150 hours of unpaid work.

He was told to dress in jeans, trainers and a fluorescent safety jacket for a day's work in a 'Community Payback' scheme. His tasks included weeding, clearing moss, painting and cleaning off graffiti in one of Britain's grimmest council estates.

His experiment was welcomed by penal campaigners. 'If only sentencers would go out and see for themselves that community penalties work far better for petty offences than wasted time in overcrowded jails,' said Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust.

In the interview Phillips also expresses alarm about the possibility of prison riots and about reports that young Muslims are being radicalised in prison by al-Qaeda operatives.

Phillips has other warnings for the government. He is concerned about the use of antisocial behaviour orders, and about judges being compelled to pass five-year minimum jail sentences for people possessing guns.

Referring to Reid's intervention in the case of the sentence passed on the paedophile Craig Sweeney, he says he does not 'approve of Home Secretaries weighing off about sentences'.

In an uncompromising defence of the Human Rights Act, he reserves his sternest remarks to warn against any move - and one is said to be under consideration by Reid - to dilute the legal protection against torture. Judges, he says, will not tolerate any 'rebalancing' to allow for overriding national security issues.

'So far as torture is concerned, there is no scope for balancing,' he says. 'There is an absolute prohibition. There is no scope for bending the facts to give effect to policy. It is critically important that judges apply the law as it is.'

    Madness of dustbin jails - by Lord Chief Justice, O, 8.10.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1890523,00.html

Focus: crime and punishment

'Yes, that's me with the spade.' How top judge turned convict

In a unique experiment, Lord Phillips ditched his wig and rolled up his sleeves on a 'payback project' beside convicted criminals. His aim, he tells Mary Riddell in an exclusive interview, was to prove that non-custodial punishments work

Sunday October 8, 2006
The Observer

Soon after dawn on a sunny Thursday, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers set out for the strangest day's work ever done by a Lord Chief Justice. In place of wig and robes, he had been told to wear blue jeans and trainers and to report on time for his stint of hard manual labour. He had been warned he might be frisked to ensure he had no mobile phone, iPod or alcohol, and that he must obey orders. For seven hours, he would be treated as a convict.

In a first in British legal history, Lord Phillips had asked to do a day's unpaid work as part of a community order under which offenders avoid jail by doing 'payback' projects. He wanted to prove that non-custodial sentences are the right alternative for many to prisons, now so overcrowded he considers it 'difficult or impossible' for them to rehabilitate offenders and prevent re-offending.

The experiment took months to arrange. Phillips wanted secrecy, and the day had to be cancelled once because of a possible leak to the media. 'Someone got wind of it and I was anxious to be absolutely incognito,' he said. 'I didn't want this to be seen as some sort of publicity stunt.' He agreed to speak to The Observer later, as part of his first major interview since he took office a year ago.

We begin with the day he caught an early train to Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, to be picked up by Thames Valley Probation Area staff. His supervisor and his medium to high-risk workmates, who included a fraudster and a burglar, had no idea of his real identity. Nor have they since been told.

'My cover had been arranged,' he said. 'I posed as a shipping solicitor convicted of driving with excess alcohol and sentenced to 150 hours' unpaid work and 18 months' disqualification.'

The most senior judge in England and Wales - told to wear a yellow fluorescent jacket for safety reasons - was driven to the Lakes in Bletchley, a run-down council estate where vandalism and antisocial behaviour are rife. He and his three workmates were ordered to scrape the moss from two filthy seating areas and clean them up before repainting a burnt-out underpass daubed in graffiti and clearing surrounding weeds.

Though the 68-year-old Phillips swims in icy outdoor pools all winter and treks in the Himalayas, he found the work demanding. His normal day might involve chairing the sentencing guidelines council, or sitting in judgment on the gravest issues to face the courts. He was, for example, head of the panel of three appeal judges that confirmed as unlawful the government's control orders under which terror suspects were monitored and confined to their homes.

His unpaid work posed a very different challenge. 'I was sweating away, doing the weeding. After a tea break we brushed and washed down the inside of the underpass, attacking the black ceiling with buckets of water and squeegees. It was pretty foul work. The passageway was fairly revolting. Someone had set fire to a wastepaper basket, so the ceiling was coated in soot and the dirt ran down my arms.'

Some passers-by who saw the men's 'Community Payback' sandwich board shouted at the Lord Chief Justice that his efforts were useless. 'They asked why we were bothering to clean the place up when it would be just the same tomorrow.' Others were encouraging, including a gang of small boys who demanded to know what crimes the men had committed. 'Until then there hadn't been a lot of chitchat or eye contact, but the offenders readily admitted what they had done,' Phillips said. 'I thought it was a very good lesson for these boys.'

He was allowed a short lunch break in which he ate a cheese and tomato roll prepared by his wife and read The Sea, by John Banville. His three workmates shared a copy of the Sun

'I could see how my fellow offenders were doing; they worked hard. One asked for black paint so he could paint the bottom bit of the tunnel properly. We were obviously providing a service to this community. I wish I could have done a dozen different projects to compare them, but this one showed how a scheme could work well. Afterwards an official from the local authority came to see what we had done and was impressed. A local police sergeant complimented us. I felt a degree of pride. We all did.'

Though Phillips has claimed that the wigs they wear in court do not prevent judges being in tune with other people's lives, he hardly makes a fetish of this himself. Apart from a BlackBerry, which he left at home as instructed, he carries no electronic gadgets, nor has he listened to Arctic Monkeys.

His decision to try 'life on criminal street' will astonish those who see Phillips as one of the most cerebral occupants of his office. His arguments for restricting prison to dangerous and serious offenders could also provoke fury from newspapers that have already branded him the 'muggers' mate' over court guidelines that young, first-time robbers may escape prison if they use or threaten only minimal violence.

Was he talking about the person who demands an iPod and claims to have a weapon? 'Or the kid who is standing next to him, almost as a bystander,' he said. 'The majority of these young, first-time offenders have not been to prison in the past. The idea that one should send them all to prison is misconceived. I'm concerned about being attacked as "a liberal". I like to think that I am liberal, but that is not the same as being soft on crime. The idea that [using] alternatives to custody is being soft is wrong.

'Most of these people are inadequate. If you put them inside they can't make people's lives a misery until they come out and re-offend. [They do so] because you haven't addressed the reason they are such a menace. The public must be educated to distinguish between the brutal, dangerous offender and the inadequate who offends to get money for drugs.'

His support for tough community penalties, which often include drug or mental health treatment, or a curfew, coincides with an impending crisis. The Home Secretary has been told that every jail place in England and Wales may be full this week and that prisoners will have to be housed in police cells.

Phillips warned that prisons can no longer offer rehabilitation. 'Those interventions are rendered difficult or impossible if prisons are as full as now. And emergency measures of keeping prisoners in police cells are highly undesirable.' Are prisons - full of the mentally ill and drug-addicted - simply social dustbins? 'I think they are, to some extent.

'It's also a matter of pure economics. It's madness to spend £37,000 a year [on keeping someone in jail] when by spending much less on services in the community, you can do as good a job. Statistics show there is not much difference on re-offending rates, but even a 10 per cent improvement is a start.'

Phillips sees no long-term solutions in John Reid's plans for an extra 8,000 jail places, while putting more resources into community punishment would 'give long-term benefits'. But 'courts will not use non-custodial sentences unless they are persuaded the services are there, and properly resourced'.

During his own day's work, Phillips was told there was no public money for sealant needed to protect the tunnel he had repainted until the police chipped in, and that another community project had been abandoned because of a refusal to hire a portable toilet. 'It is particularly unfortunate if projects cannot be undertaken for want of relatively modest funds for tools and materials or Portaloos. Community work is much less expensive than prison places, and it must make sense to provide the resources.'

He fears jails may be on the brink of disorder, and that young Muslim inmates are being radicalised by al-Qaeda sympathisers. 'Yes, of course I am worried by that. If a place is overcrowded and there's a nine-month waiting list for the course you want, you get anger that can lead to disturbances.'

Has Phillips, a regular visitor to the Home Office during Charles Clarke's tenure, seen much of Reid? 'I've only had one meeting so far. [He later amends this to two.] It was very early days, and he accepted he had a lot to learn. We were trying to explain to him the role of judges, and I think he appreciated it.'

Phillips was said to have been enraged by Reid's demand, after a public outcry, that the Attorney General refer to the Court of Appeal the sentence passed on a paedophile, Craig Sweeney, who was told he could be considered for parole after serving five years of a life sentence. Was the Lord Chief Justice worried by this potential clash between the government and the judiciary? 'Yes,' he said. 'I think that particular incident, with a Home Secretary recently in office, reflects an area of sentencing that is very difficult to get your mind round.'

So Reid acted through ignorance, not intent? 'I think it would be understandable if the Home Secretary had not understood the complexities of that case,' Phillips said, before warning that such a constitutional error must not occur again. 'I am not saying I approve of Home Secretaries weighing off about sentences when a remedy is available, which is to refer [the matter] to the Attorney General.'

Is the Human Rights Act safe from ministers? 'I don't think it likely anyone will try to mess around with the Human Rights Act. It's an important and successful part of the legal structure.' But Reid is reported to be heading for a showdown with the judiciary over plans to strip some terror suspects of the automatic right to be protected from torture.

Does Phillips see any scope for rebalancing the torture prohibition and overriding considerations of national security? 'So far as torture is concerned, there is no scope for balancing. There is an absolute prohibition on torture and on evidence that may have been obtained by torture. That absolute is essential if we are going to fight terrorism, because the battle is ideological. You have to stand by human rights because that is the ideology in which we believe. If we abandon that we abandon a crucial weapon.'

So the courts will never repatriate people if they face a risk of torture? 'The test is absolutely clear. Is there a real risk that if a person is sent to country X, he would be subjected to torture or inhumane treatment? There is no scope for bending the facts to give effect to policy.' And issues of national security would never alter that rule? 'No. It's critically important that judges apply the law as it is.'

This is his strongest warning against potential ministerial meddling, but he holds other controversial views. He is, for instance, concerned at over-rigid sentences. 'There are one or two areas where judges would like to have a discretion that has been removed,' he said. One was the mandatory five-year minimum for having a gun: 'There have been cases when the firearm is a souvenir someone's father had during the war.'

He is also concerned about the growing number of breaches of antisocial behaviour orders. 'Asbos are imposed for very long periods; it's asking a lot of young people to make them comply for two years. You need to be very careful before you send someone to prison for breaching one... If you ask whether it is realistic to expect a young, antisocial person to comply and the answer is no, you're building up trouble.'

For a Lord Chief Justice who has spent a year sidestepping controversy, these are robust interventions. He denied this was a time of unprecedented tension between ministers and judges. 'Occasionally an inappropriate comment has been made,' he said. 'But that does not make it the battleground some parts of the media would like to suggest.'

It remains to be seen whether all ministers will applaud Phillips's secret awayday. It is unheard of for a Lord Chief Justice to feel so strongly about draconian misuse of custody that he masquerades as a drink-driver and serves the community to prove his point.

In a week when Britain's prisons finally face the prospect of putting up the 'full' sign, there could be no stronger warning of a system in crisis.

The CV

Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, Lord Chief Justice

1962 Called to the bar; 1978 took silk; 1982 appointed a recorder, or part-time judge.

1987 Joined High Court; on to Court of Appeal in 1995.

1999 Became law lord.

2000 Made Master of the Rolls, senior judge in Court of Appeal's civil division.

2005 Succeeded Lord Woolf as Lord Chief Justice.

Lord Chief Justice duties: Tells Parliament judiciary's views. Oversees judges' training. With Lord Chancellor investigates complaints against judges. Gives judgments in appeals. Heads Sentencing Guidelines Council.

Interests: Pioneer of computer use in court. Cycles to and from assignments.

    'Yes, that's me with the spade.' How top judge turned convict, O, 8.10.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,1890314,00.html

This vital safeguard prevents hidden abuses. It should not be killed off

Sunday October 8, 2006
The Observer
Douglas Hurd, former home secretary

'Many internal areas remained dirty and vermin-infested, and too many prisoners lacked basic requirements such as pillows, toothbrushes... more prisoners than in 2005 said they felt unsafe on their first night... there was a general attitude of institutional disrespect towards prisoners... some officers appeared to treat prisoners as a lower order... we heard an unusually high number of complaints about assault and bad treatment by staff.'

This was Her Majesty's prison, Pentonville, in north London in July 2006. Anyone interested in the subject will know who is speaking. This is the one unmistakeable voice of the Chief Inspector of Prisons and her team. For 25 years now, under three very different chief inspectors, the inspectorate has spoken, loudly and with unique authority, to identify and check what goes wrong in our least-known but hugely important public service. The last chief inspector, David Ramsbotham, let me accompany his colleagues on one of his inspections. I was deeply impressed by the thoroughness and integrity of their work.

This voice is now to be muted, even smothered, by the government. The Police and Justice Bill proposes to merge the Prisons Inspectorate with four other inspectorates, those of police, probation, court administration and the Crown Prosecution Service. There will no longer be an independent personality looking at prisons, but simply a deputy to a chief inspector who will be in charge of everything. The fearless character of the present prison inspectorate will be lost. It is hard to discover the government's motive for this vandalism. The change will save no money. The motive may not be malicious, but the consequences have not been thought through.

On Tuesday, the House of Lords will debate this change. The Commons looked at it only in standing committee; ruthless timetabling prevented any discussion by the whole House at the debate stage. We shall be faced in the Lords on Tuesday with the honeyed words of the Home Office Minister, Patricia Scotland. She will argue that the merger is in line with the government policy of treating crime as a seamless whole, beginning with prevention and detection, proceeding through the courts, punishment and prison, ending with post-release help and monitoring.

All these services need to work better together. It does not follow that the Prisons Inspectorate needs to be submerged in the way proposed. For there is a fundamental difference between this and the other inspectorates. The others are rightly concerned with the smooth and efficient running of a public service.

The prisons inspectorate deals with something different - the conditions in which human beings are held who have been deprived of their liberty by the verdict of a court. That is why the United Nations convention against torture, by which the UK is bound, provides for 'a system of regular visits undertaken by independent international and national bodies to places where people are deprived of their liberty in order to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment'.

Delegations come from across the world to study our prisons inspectorate because of its high reputation in this cause. Soon, nothing may be left except a pile of old reports. The minister will multiply her assurances that all will be for the best in the new homogenised inspectorate. But the essential robustness of the present system will have been compromised.

This is at a time when such robustness is particularly needed. When overcrowded to the point of being full, Pentonville holds 1,127 prisoners. On the day of the last inspection, it held 1,125. Last week, the prison population in England and Wales stood at 79,806, just 162 short of the limit on capacity.

In overcrowded prisons, rules tend to be broken and rights ignored. Overcrowded prisons are sending out into the world individuals who might in better conditions have kicked the drugs habit, learnt to read and write or trained themselves to hold a job. There will always be argument about the merits of prison. There can be no arguments in favour of a prison system hidden from the public gaze, where abuses multiply because there is no one to detect them.

If it mutilates the Prisons Inspectorate, the government will be disabling the messenger rather than listening to the message. The House of Lords has a chance this week to make the government think again.

· Douglas Hurd was Home Secretary from 1985 to 1989 and is chairman of the Prison Reform Trust

    This vital safeguard prevents hidden abuses. It should not be killed off, O, 8.10.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,1890313,00.html

Prisons failing to tackle terror recruitment

Officers call for policy to stop al-Qaida radicalising ethnic minorities in jails

Monday October 2, 2006
Guardian
Alan Travis, home affairs editor

The prison service has no strategy to tackle al-Qaida operatives radicalising and recruiting young African-Caribbean and other ethnic minority prisoners in British jails, according to prison officers.

Britain now houses more suspected terrorist prisoners - the number is in the high hundreds - than any other European country, with many housed on normal wings alongside ordinary offenders.

The Prison Officers' Association says some of these terrorist prisoners are targeting for radicalisation and recruitment other alienated ethnic minority groups, as well as the smaller number of younger Muslim prisoners, and they are providing "rich pickings". Many of those held, whom they describe as "dangerous and highly capable", are "high up" in groups using the al-Qaida name and their lives have been dedicated to radicalising younger and more vulnerable people.

But senior prison managers have admitted in official correspondence that despite being aware of the problem they are waiting for a recently formed extremist prisoner working group to report before they do anything about it.

The POA has warned the government that urgent steps need to be taken to prevent the more dangerous suspected terrorist prisoners engaging in criminal integration and collusion, as well as their adoption of new radicalising and recruitment techniques.

Terror suspects and convicted terrorists are concentrated in high-security prisons, including Belmarsh in London and Woodhill in Milton Keynes. Despite being given the highest security, category A rating, most are kept on normal prison wings as the resources do not exist to deal with them all in separate secure units.

Steve Gough, the POA's vice-chairman, said he did not think there were "al-Qaida-controlled wings" yet in British prisons but said the stage had already been reached where they were recruiting prisoners sharing their cells or impressionable youngsters in the cell next door.

"Prison staff are very good at intelligence-led surveillance but it is difficult gathering intelligence listening to people who are having conversations in languages you don't understand. There are now many high-profile terrorist prisoners locked up on normal location, on normal wings with any other prisoner instead of in special environments."

The shoe bomber Richard Reid, the son of two non-Muslims, a white mother and a Jamaican father, has revealed how being radicalised while inside Feltham young offenders' institution led to his conversion to violent jihadism.

Lord Carlile, the independent watchdog on the government's anti-terror laws, this year identified the recruitment of radicalised youth in prisons as a problem and raised concerns about the activities of a small number of imams in prisons.

But more than a year after the bombings in London highlighted the need to tackle the radicalisation of Muslims the prison service has admitted that it has done little about it.

Peter Atherton, the deputy director-general of the prison service, has told the POA that "while there are some concerns that some people might be radicalised, there is little hard evidence that it is happening to date".

In a letter to Mr Gough, he disclosed that the prison service has recently formed an extremist prisoner working group, but senior managers are waiting for it to report before drawing up a prison service strategy for combating terrorism.

Meanwhile the Metropolitan police special branch has set up an intelligence unit in the prison service headquarters and there is also a system for monitoring terrorists held in high security.

Mr Gough said this response was entirely inappropriate: "This isn't a problem that will occur in the next few years. This is something the prison service should have been planning for since 9/11."

    Prisons failing to tackle terror recruitment, G, 2.10.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1885395,00.html