'No final decision' made on prisoners sharing temporary cells to free up space

The Ministry of Justice has said it has made "no final decision" on whether prisoners can share temporary cells built for one person to ease the shortage of prison places.

The UK prison system faces a severe capacity crisis as the MoJ scrambles for emergency solutions to keep pace with dwindling prison spaces.

One solution by Labour, revealed in leaked documents, appears to involve plans by the Prison Service to force hundreds of inmates to "double up" in temporary prefabricated steel cells originally built for single occupancy.

Governors across 10 category C prisons in England and Wales have been asked to sign off on installing second beds in these rapid deployment cells (RDCs), according to the Guardian.

The purpose-built, steel-framed cells are designed specifically for prisons and could add 476 spaces.

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman told GB News: "As the public would expect, we’re pulling every lever available to ensure there is always space to lock up dangerous offenders.

"Cells are only doubled up where it is safe to do so, and no final decision has been taken on these units."

Currently, 87,111 inmates are housed in the prison system, which the Government claims can safely hold 81,616.

Andrea Coomber, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said prisons were "under intolerable pressure" and called on the Government to introduce "sensible steps to reduce the prison population safely".

She said: "This is the latest in a series of acts of desperation that reveal how serious the prison capacity crisis has become.

"Rapid deployment cells were themselves meant to be a short-term response but, ironically, they have come to be seen as being among the more positive parts of the prison estate - particularly when used as enhanced wings, with fewer issues related to violence, debt and drug misuse.

"The risk now is that all this will be undermined as more and more people get crammed in."

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Mark Fairhurst, national chairman of the Prison Officers Association, told The Guardian that any breaches of capacity could lead to industrial action.

He said: "By law our members cannot strike, but I know they would walk out on health and safety grounds if asked to oversee prisons which cannot cope with the numbers being proposed.

"Creating more space increases the pressure on an already overcrowded prison estate and risks the stability of prisons.

"If the government are convinced that early release schemes are sufficient, you have to ask why they are now insisting prisons source every available bit of spare capacity."

Tom Wheatley, president of the Prison Governors Association, added that each prison would need a full risk assessment to ensure the public and staff remained safe if they doubled up.

He told the publication: "RDCs are amongst the least secure accommodation in the prison estate and prisoners located in them will have to be risk assessed. If you don’t do this, the prison won’t be sufficiently safe or secure.

"Increasing the operational capacity of a prison isn’t as simple as putting bunk beds in cells.

"There needs to be staff available to supervise the additional prisoners and there needs to be additional regime activities."

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