April 29, 2005: Prison Population Hits Record High
There are no votes to be had in appearing to be soft on crime,
so it may not be a major focus for public debate that the prison population in
England and Wales has hit a new record high. Figures released today by
HM Prison Service indicate that
we are now imprisoning 75,540 inmates. This figure comprises 71,057 male
prisoners and 4,483 female prisoners. The previous record total in the prison population was reached
a year ago, in April 2004.
The Useable Operational Capacity of the prison estate is the
sum of all prison establishments’ operational capacity minus 1,700 places.
This is known as the 'operating margin' and reflects the constraints imposed by
the need to provide separate accommodation for different classes of prisoner
i.e. by gender, age, security category, conviction status, single cell risk
assessment (and also geographical distribution).
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