How overcrowded are British prisons?

As more people continue to be convicted of sedition, the government has activated an emergency plan to reduce prison overcrowding.

Across the north of England, defendants awaiting trial are held in police cells and only summoned to the magistrates' court when prison space becomes available.

The plan, called “Operation Early Dawn,” was put into action on Monday morning and was implemented by the Conservative government in May.

It will be rolled out in the North East and Yorkshire, Cumbria and Lancashire, and the Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire regions.

More than 1,000 people have been arrested in connection with violent unrest in England and Northern Ireland this month. The unrest erupted after the fatal knife attacks on three girls in Southport. More than 470 people have been charged with offences so far, the Crown Prosecution Service said.

Lord Timpson, Minister for Prisons and Probation, said: “We have inherited a justice system that is in crisis and facing shocks. That is why we are being forced to make difficult but necessary decisions to keep it running.”

Read more: Labour has ‘no choice’ but to release prisoners who have served 40% of their sentences, charity says

“However, thanks to the hard work of our dedicated staff and partners, we have been able to create additional places in prisons and are now launching Operation Early Dawn to address the pressures being felt in some parts of the country.”

Nev Kemp, deputy chief constable and head of arrests at the National Police Chiefs' Council, said: “Police will continue to arrest anyone who needs to be arrested to ensure public safety. This includes policing protests and events. They must ensure that people are arrested as expected.”

However, Mark Fairhurst, national chairman of the Prison Officers' Association (POA), warned that the system could lead to delays in police operations.

Fairhurst, who blamed the previous government for the crisis, told BBC Breakfast: “At the moment it is justice deferred because we are not overloading the police cells, so they may have to postpone some of their operations.”

How overcrowded are British prisons?

According to the latest survey by the Howard League for Penal Reform, the current prison population in England and Wales is 87,893.

This is in line with government figures which show that Scotland has 8,000 prison inmates and Northern Ireland has 1,900.

“According to the Department of Justice's own definition of safety and decency, prisons should not hold more than 79,856 people,” the Howard League said, adding that 8,037 men and women were incarcerated above that number.

“Overcrowding is not evenly distributed across prisons, with some prisons able to accommodate many more people than are designed to safely accommodate,” the campaign group adds.

Which prisons are the most overcrowded?

Durham is the most overcrowded prison in England and Wales, with a population of 984, 172% more than the maximum number of 573 for Certified Normal Accommodation (CNA).

CNA is the number of prisoners that can be accommodated in a cell under non-overcrowding conditions that HMPPS considers to be good and appropriate.

Leeds has a population of 1,097, which is 171% above the maximum CNA standard of 641, while Lincoln, with a population of 654 inmates, is 162% above the limit.

There were 8,365 prisoners in Scotland in May, the highest number since 2012, and the figure exceeded the country's prison capacity of 8,007, the BBC reports.

An estimated 6,500 of Scotland's prison population (74%) live in overcrowded conditions, according to STV.

Between 2000 and 2022/23, Northern Ireland's prison population increased by 58%, according to a parliamentary inquiry. In March 2024, it stood at around 1,900, which is a “historically high figure”.

During Ministerial Question Time in March, Northern Ireland's Justice Minister Naomi Long said: “In March 2021, the total population was 1,401. On March 1 this year, it had risen to 1,879, an increase of 34%.”

“About 36 percent of the prison population have not yet been convicted and are in custody.”

What is Operation Early Dawn?

Operation Early Dawn is an emergency plan to reduce prison overcrowding.

Under this programme, the UK Prison and Probation Service will check every morning which defendants from police cells can be brought to trial.

This means that defendants may have to stay in custody for an extra night rather than face trial if authorities are not satisfied that a “safe” prison place will be available for them after the verdict is announced.

Those imprisoned for “less serious” crimes are more likely to be released on bail, while proceedings before justices of the peace may be delayed to give priority to more serious cases.

The emergency measure will be applied regionally where demand requires it. Bail will continue to be decided by judges and the police, not the government.

Fairhurst told the BBC that the system has significant disadvantages: “They are now clogging up police cells so that they no longer have the power to arrest people and put them in a police cell. This has massive knock-on effects on the entire criminal justice system.”

Operation Early Dawn was launched by the Conservative government in May to combat prison overcrowding.

How else is the government trying to free up space in prisons?

Justice Minister Shabana Mahmood announced plans to reduce the proportion of prison sentences that prisoners must serve behind bars from 50% to 40%.

This temporary move – which does not apply to people convicted of sexual offences, terrorism, domestic violence or certain violent crimes – is expected to lead to the release of 5,500 offenders in September and October.

Last Monday, the government confirmed that those involved in the recent unrest would not be exempt from plans to release some prisoners early.

MEPs have already approved the laws that will allow the plan to be implemented. Any changes to the legislation could require a short-term update if additional exemptions are to be included.

Although the plan is controversial, Andrea Coomber, executive director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, told Yahoo News in July that the newly elected Labor government had “no choice”.

“They have inherited such chaos and have to take such drastic measures… the whole system is on the verge of collapse,” she said.

Coomber said successive governments lacked a “massive strategy on how to deal with lawbreakers”, adding that the focus needed to be on prevention and rehabilitation rather than retribution.

“Our prisons are definitely places of punishment. We are good at punishing people. But we do not rehabilitate them. There are many people in our prisons who should not be there,” she added.

In June, shortly after winning the general election, Labour promised to provide 14,000 new prison places in England and Wales.

This would be a continuation of the previous Conservative government, which promised to create 20,000 new places by the mid-2020s but only created 6,000. It is expected that the new places will be created through a combination of expanding existing prisons and building new places.

Earlier this week, former chief inspector of prisons Nick Hardwick said the government should scrap the £4 billion plan and spend the money on prevention and rehabilitation instead. “The basic problem is that people are entering the system faster than they are leaving it,” he told the Guardian. “Think of it like a bath: the bath is overflowing, but water is still coming in.”

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