Under the Tories overcrowding and understaffing have created a prison crisis - Burgon

Richard Burgon MP, Labour’s Shadow Justice Secretary, responding to forecasts that the prison population is set to rise to 88,000 by 2022, said:

“Under the Tories, overcrowding and understaffing have brought the prison system to a crisis.

“These figures demonstrate that this Conservative Government has no real plan to fix the mess they’ve made and that overcrowding is only set to get worse over the coming years.”

Ends

Notes to editors

• ·         Forecasts released by the Ministry of Justice reveal that the prison population is forecast to increase by 1,600 places above the current level to 88,000 in March 2022 (Prison Population Projections 2017 to 2022, 24 August 2017, [https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/639801/prison-population-projections-2017-2022.pdf]