The Prison Officers' Association talks about prisoners having breakfast in bed: in reality prisoners, doubled or trebled up in cells because there aren’t enough prison places, eat all their meals – soggy chips and limp burgers sitting in congealed fat - on a tray sitting on their bunks, beside an open toilet. Not exactly the Ritz, is it?

Because of overcrowding, they now go into their cells at Friday lunchtime and are locked in without any association, exercise, education or training until Monday morning.

While we’d agree with prison officers that the drugs problem is rife and of major concern, what is ‘comfy’ about the fact that one in five heroin users take that drug for the first time in a prison? Or the scandal that because of overcrowding, prisons dole out opiate substitutes like methadone simply to manage people’s addictions while they’re inside, because they don’t have the time or resources to do proper interventions? What is the point of prisons that actually create drug addicts, when drug addiction is a major driver for crime?

It’s no wonder around two thirds of prisoners are reconvicted within two years of release, with the figure rising to over three quarters among under-18s. The US, where California spends more on prisons than on higher education, shows that simply building more prisons is not the answer. Ultimately, we need to sort out the people who do need to be in prison – the serious, violent and sexual offenders from those low level offenders whose drug addictions and mental health problems would be better treated in the community.

If that’s to happen, though, the criminal justice system will one way or another need more money – be it prisons or probation, this is a system well and truly on its knees.

Andrew Neilson is Assistant Director, Public Affairs and Policy at the Howard League for Penal Reform

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