Crisis measures to ease prison overcrowding have been triggered by the Government as Britain’s jails reach capacity.
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said an influx of criminals handed prison sentences in January this year means police cells will have to be used to house inmates.
She announced the measure, known as Operation Safeguard, in a written statement on Tuesday saying men’s prisons are 99% full.
It means the Prison Service and the National Police Chiefs' Council will agree to hold offenders overnight in police cells until jail space becomes available. It is only used when detention centres are very close to running out of space.
The measure is expected to free up about 200 cells for use by the Prison Service. However at £688 a day, they are nearly five times as expensive as the average prison place, according to the National Audit Office.
The move comes despite thousands of offenders being released early in September under a scheme which was designed to tackle the overcrowding crisis until 2026.
Ms Mahmood said: “Over the last three months population growth in the prison estate has been high – January saw the highest average monthly prison population growth in almost two years, which has only just begun to slow.
“As of March 17, there were 824 places remaining in the adult male estate. We are operating at more than 99% occupancy.
“Operating this close to critical capacity increases the risk that prisons do not have sufficient space for a given prisoner entering the system and so an alternative has to be found, which is most frequently in a police cell.
“In recent weeks this has happened hundreds of times, far above the rate seen during normal operations. On the night of March 10, there were 124 no-space lockouts, which is the highest number of business-as-usual (BAU) lockouts on record.”
In September the Government released thousands of prisoners who had served 40% of their sentence early despite warnings that some were certain to reoffend.
However, the prison population in England and Wales has reached a six-month high, according to Ministry of Justice figures.
The Government has just opened a new 458-capacity houseblock at HMP Rye Hill.
But Operation Safeguard is likely to be in place for at least a few weeks when HMP Millsike, a new 1,500 capacity prison in North Yorkshire, is expected to open.
Ms Mahmood added: “I expect prison capacity will remain tight until the new capacity is fully operational. Given the recent increase in demand, it is necessary, and prudent, for me to temporarily reactivate Operation Safeguard to better manage the flow of offenders into the prison estate.”
