Howard League: Prison system out of control

The Howard League for Penal Reform has expressed its deep concerns with the state of Britain's prison system, following comments by the Prison Officers' Association (POA) that inmates enjoy a comfortable lifestyle.

Frances Crook, the lobby group's director, said she subscribed to the POA's overall picture of "an understaffed and overcrowded system snowballing out of control".

Ms Crook highlighted "rife" mental illness and drug addiction to justify her case, pointing to heroin use and self-harm rates as growing problems.

And she directly linked the issue of televisions in prison cells to the overcrowding problem, saying prisoners were being given them "to keep them quiet, as due to overstretched prisons they are locked in their cells for longer and longer periods".

Ms Crook concluded: "Until we address the fact that many of the people in custody simply shouldn't be there, the prison system will continue to hurtle towards the abyss."