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| Full jails told to take in more prisoners | Full jails told to take in more prisoners |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| The Ministry of Justice has ordered dozens of already full jails to take more prisoners because the jail population is increasing faster than expected, it has emerged. | The Ministry of Justice has ordered dozens of already full jails to take more prisoners because the jail population is increasing faster than expected, it has emerged. |
| Forty prisons in England and Wales have been told to raise their "operational capacity" in the next two months, according to documents seen by the BBC. | Forty prisons in England and Wales have been told to raise their "operational capacity" in the next two months, according to documents seen by the BBC. |
| All but six of these are running at full capacity or are overcrowded. | All but six of these are running at full capacity or are overcrowded. |
| They include Wandsworth in south London, Lincoln, Leicester and Durham. | They include Wandsworth in south London, Lincoln, Leicester and Durham. |
| Other prisons affected include Bedford, Leeds and two other London facilities, Pentonville and Brixton. | |
| 'Very difficult' | |
| The jails have been told they need to find accommodation for 440 more prisoners, in total. | |
| This figure represents about 0.5% of the prison population of 85,410. On average, the 40 prisons affected will have to find space for an additional 11 inmates each. | |
| BBC home affairs correspondent Danny Shaw says it will be very difficult for prisons to deal with any increase in inmates. | |
| Some facilities are already at 150-160% capacity, he says. | |
| He adds that the order to take in more prisoners is very embarrassing for the Ministry of Justice, which has closed 16 jails in the past four years. | |
| A further two prisons were converted to immigration removal centres, after prison population forecasts suggested numbers would stabilise or rise only slowly. | |
| The MoJ has yet to respond to a request for comment. | |
| Twin beds | |
| The Prison Officers Association described the development as a "fiasco". | |
| It said emergency measures were also being put in place to recruit staff after thousands of prison officers took voluntary redundancy. | |
| Retired officers and those who have recently left the service are being offered short-term contracts to re-join until the end of the year. | |
| The governor of Coldingley Prison in Surrey, Eoin McLennan-Murray, who heads the Prison Governors Association, said he had been told to find space for an extra six prisoners, which he was doing by putting extra beds in cells designed for two people. | |
| Other jails are likely to fit twin beds in single cells. | |
| 'Perfect storm' | |
| Mr McLennan-Murray said the prison population was now expected to rise by 1,000 more than earlier projections. | |
| "All the planning assumptions are based on smaller population projections." | |
| He said this issue combined with prison staff shortages, a new prison regime and increasing numbers of assaults and incidents, was creating a "perfect storm". | |
| "All of these things will de-stabilise prisons," he said. | |
| "I struggle to recall a time when there were so many issues and problems." |