The government has formally triggered a crisis measure to ease prison overcrowding by using police cells to house inmates.
The confirmation of Operation Safeguard by the Ministry of Justice follows a decision to consider releasing some prisoners 70 days before their sentences were due to end.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Triggering Operation Safeguard is not an unprecedented measure.
“It is helping us respond to acute capacity pressures caused in part by barristers’ industrial action and the aftermath of the pandemic, while we press ahead with delivering the biggest expansion of prison places in a century including six new jails.”
The MoJ denies that the measure exposes a failure of planning and said the number of police cells needed would be kept under constant review, in part to keep costs down.
One source said a police force had cleared 20 cell places this week to house people coming from prisons.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council, representing police leaders, were unable to comment.
The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesperson Alistair Carmichael said: “This is just further proof that the Conservatives have completely failed to tackle the crisis in our prisons.
“Court backlogs remain sky-high and prisons are dangerously close to capacity.
“Conservative ministers need to reassure the public that no dangerous criminals will be released early, and that they are finally taking steps to tackle the problem and address prison overcrowding.”
At the start of May the prison population in England and Wales was 87,505, with the official usable capacity put at 88,895. Capacity has increased by 3,000 places in a year, but still cannot keep up with demand.
Operation Safeguard is meant as a temporary measure and is an expensive choice to house inmates who have either been convicted or who are on remand awaiting trial.
It was triggered twice when Labour was in power and then again in November 2022, November 2023 and between February and April this year, the MoJ said.
In another sign of the crisis gripping jails, the official inspector of prisons issued a damning report about one of Britain’s biggest jails.
HMP Wandsworth, already at the centre of a series of scandals, is facing calls from the prisons watchdog to be placed into emergency measures after concerns over security, overcrowding, drugs and self-harm.
After an inspection of the category B Victorian jail, which was the scene of a high-profile escape in September, the chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor, has asked the justice secretary, Alex Chalk, to issue an urgent notification.
Daniel Khalife stands accused of fleeing custody while being held on remand on terrorism charges. He allegedly strapped himself underneath a food delivery lorry and was arrested a few days later. The former soldier denies all the charges against him and will face trial in October.
Katie Price, the governor of the prison, resigned following Taylor’s inspection this week. Experiences from the overpopulated prison reveal accounts of vermin, mould, sewage-riddled cells, understaffing, limited clothing, and a lack of medical attention for inmates.
Taylor warned security remained a serious concern at the prison, with “chaotic” wings and staff across most units unable to “accurately account for their prisoners during the working day”. He said it was “unfathomable” that bosses had “not focused their attention on this area”.
The Prison Governors’ Association said the move “will be of no surprise to the government” after Price’s resignation.
Taylor said: “The poor outcomes we found at Wandsworth are systemic and cultural failures and stemmed from poor leadership at every level of the prison, from HMPPS (His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service) and the Ministry of Justice.”
Seven prisoners had taken their own lives in the past year, Taylor said.
Four out of five of the 1,513 men held there were sharing cells designed for one person and most inmates spent more than 22 hours a day confined to the “cramped, squalid” conditions with “no idea if or when they would leave them or have any access to fresh air”, according to the findings.