Prisons in Britain are planning to use shipping containers in order to deal with an overcrowding crisis. The plans hope to increase the capacity in the prison estate by 14,000 as the country’s jails continue to be stretched to breaking point.
The move will see tens of millions of pounds spent on the solution which was previously used during the COVID pandemic to help prisons maintain social distancing. According to documents seen by The Sun on Sunday, the containers will come with beds and tables built in. Paperwork says: “The units are arranged into a double or single storey configuration and attached to separate sleeper units.” A source told the newspaper: “You have to wonder how safe and secure the containers will be. Prisoners will also no doubt lodge loads of complaints.”
HMP Albany on the Isle of Wight, which once housed disgraced paedophile Gary Glitter, is set to spend £15 million on the containers known as “rapid deployment cells”.
Around £7 billion has been allocated to the project with hundreds of millions set to be spent on improving jails with some having been put into special measures as a result of “frightening conditions.”
Earlier this week it was reported that chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor called on the government to take urgent action to address “unacceptable” findings at HMP Pentonville, which included widespread cockroach and mice infestations.
He added that prisoners were being held in dirty cells without bedding or furniture, were locked in their cells for over 22 hours a day and subject to “shockingly poor” supervision, with one officer found asleep on the job, two reading books and one “completely absent”.
The plans have been confirmed by prison bosses as they seek to ease the overcrowding crisis in Britain’s jails which has seen the government forced to release prisoners early.
Currently, prisoners convicted of certain offences are released after serving just 40% of their sentence in order to ease the burden on the prison estate.
Under new plans, this could be lowered to around a third of their sentence after an independent sentencing review led by former Conservative Lord Chancellor David Gauke.
Mr Gauke has argued that the crisis cannot be solved by building new prisons alone as he argued that the early release scheme was “the right thing to be doing”.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “To ensure we never run out of prison places again, we’re installing rapid deployment cells across the prison estate.”