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Press releasesREF: PR/09/07 DATE: 26th January 2007 To: ALL POLITICAL PRESS RELEASE Prison Overcrowding "Talk is Cheap" as Lip Service is Paid to Prison CrisisFollowing the recent announcement by the Home Secretary that he is looking at several options to manage the problems of prison overcrowding, leaders of the POA express concern over the lack of substance to the plans to action his proposals. Currently, the Prison Service is operating at almost 1,000 prison officers short, compared to the required “safe operating levels” for prisons in England and Wales. As the Home Secretary announces plans to open a prison in Merseyside during 2007 and two wings within existing prisons, the crisis mounts for the Prison Service. The plans to purchase prison ships and open army camps all look sound but how will the Service manage to staff these additional places. Recently the Director General of the Prison Service stated it would be unsafe and dangerous to increase prisons’ operational capacity by one single place but today all seems to have changed. Colin Moses, National Chairman of the POA, said - “We welcome any investment or planned investment in the public sector Prison Service. However, we cannot continue to rob Peter to pay Paul; the current policy of the Home Office. My members are being sent from their establishments to other establishments, in an attempt to shore up the crisis management of the Prison Service. This is at a time when staff are being sent on detached duty to fill gaps left by staff at that establishment when those staff have been sent on detached duty to other establishments. How insane is this, and what a waste of public funds. The Home Secretary refuses to speak to this Union to look at ways of resolving the crisis. Instead, we are faced with a wall of silence, which can only be viewed as dumb insolence. The professional men and women currently working in the most overcrowded prisons in Western Europe deserve to have their views heard. When will this Government begin to listen to the professionals”? Brian Caton, General Secretary, said – “The public is being paid lip service, with proposals being thrown around without the substance to support them. We need to see the recruitment programme to fulfil the current staffing requirements of a Service in crisis. We need to establish the time frame to recruit the additional staff to operate the proposed new prison places. Or are we to see the continued mismanagement and abuse of public funds. The use of Police cells, at around £400 per prisoner per night, has to be stopped. The use of court cells which deprive prisoners of basic facilities is completely and utterly unacceptable. These problems are the tip of the iceberg for the Home Office but if public confidence is to be restored in the prison system, sustainable changes have to be put in place”.
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