PRISON places could be nearly 12,000 short in just over five years, official estimates show.
If sentencing trends continue, the Prison Service will be nearly 6,000 places short by November 2011.
There will be 94,320 inmates in England and Wales by then if there are no shifts in the law or sentencing guidelines. The government will have expanded the number of places to just 88,400.
But the number of inmates could be as high as 100,200, leaving ministers nearly 12,000 places short.
Last week, Home Secretary John Reid pledged to expand the number of places to 88,400 as part of his plan to "rebalance" the criminal justice system in favour of victims.
The latest figures mean that, to avoid a shortfall, Mr Reid will either need to secure funding for more prisons, or plan moves to cut the growing prison population.
The lowest projection published said that changes to sentencing policy could cut the jail population to as few as 88,400 by November 2011, exactly the amount of jail spaces pledged by Mr Reid.
In six years from now, the lowest number of inmates would be 89,360.
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Why dont we execute the murders and paedos, and stop putting elderly people in for non council tax payments etc.
It cost thousands to feed and accommodate these morons and yet everybody else has to go to work to pay for a roof above there heads.
Or we could ship them off to a third world country so they know what work really is.
More prisons please.
If they know that they will need more spaces it would seem they know there will be more crime. Have they decided that higher crime rates are inevitable.
in that case build more prisons! squeeze as many cells as possible in and go easy on the gym, pool rooms etc. the only people who go to prison these days are real toe rags so who cares what degree of luxury they are incarcerated in? make prisons a deterrent so that scummos don't want to go back there instead of free luxury accommodation which every decent law abiding tax payer has to shell out for. end of story.
start building now! the labour force could come from the welfare rolls. create a tent city out on the moors somewhere, complete with a messhall and porta-loos. give all able bodied welfare moochers a choice, get a job or we will assign you to the prison builders crew. either way they will learn the concept of working for a living. a little creativity from the government could reduce the burden on the tax paying citizens and create a lot of job training in the process.
more prison or heaven forbid some executions.
More prison places? Overall crime has fallen by 44% in the last decade, is stable this year, and murder is down. Logically, a contraction of the prison system is required, not an expansion. Prison doesn't work, anyway (most prisoners reoffend following release from jail), so if there's public money to spare, common sense dictates it should be spent wisely, eg increased investment in community sentences, which are more cost-effective, and suitable for non-violent offenders.
Existing prisons need to be brought into the 21st century, eg Long Lartin men's prison, Worcs: prisons inspectorate report published 14.03.06 said the night sanitation system was "grossly inadequate ... grounds littered with parcels of excrement thrown from cell windows by prisoners who did not even have hand-washing facilities ..."