Prisons 'on thin ice' as riots inflame justice system crisis

It is "touch and go" whether prisons have enough capacity to house offenders, as the far right-fuelled riots sweeping the country heap further pressure on a justice system already in crisis, experts have warned.

- ANDY GREGORY, MILLIE COOKE

Disorder continued across the weekend and Monday as racist mobs clashed with police in areas including Birmingham, Plymouth, Hull, Halifax, Liverpool, London, Southport and Rotherham, and started fires at hotels housing asylum-seekers in Manvers and Tamworth.

Nearly 400 people have already been arrested, with Downing Street suggesting that emergency measures used during the 2011 riots to allow courts to sit overnight could be implemented so that the influx of new cases can be prosecuted.

With many lawyers who were practising during the mass disorder 13 years ago now recalling the “brutal” response which saw a majority of those suspects denied bail, reports began to emerge of those being prosecuted for the ongoing riots also being remanded in prison custody to await trial.

But the courts are already facing a record backlog of criminal cases, while prisons are running at 99 per cent of capacity ahead of the latest emergency measures to free prisoners 40 per cent of the way into their sentence coming into force in September.

The situation has been so dire in recent months that police chiefs were told in May to consider halting “non-priority arrests” until the prison crisis eased, with the previous government also allowing defendants to be held in police cells rather than being transferred to court until prison beds became available.

With fewer than 1,500 prison places left across the entire system, Sir Keir Starmer insisted on Monday that his government was monitoring the “appalling” situation daily and “will make this work and ensure that we have got the places that are needed to bring the perpetrators swiftly to justice”.