Britain’s prisons overcrowded, police cells to be used as stop-gap arrangement

By  News On Air   Mar 18, 2025

The British government today said, police cells will temporarily be used to hold prisoners in a stop-gap measure to cope with overcrowding in jails. The emergency action, dubbed “Operation Safeguard”, allows inmates to be held in police cells when prisons are full and was previously used from February 2023 to October last year.

According to official data, the prison population in England and Wales has doubled in the last 30 years, leading to overcrowding as new places have failed to keep pace with demand. Justice systems in Scotland and Northern Ireland are run separately. In a statement to parliament, Shabana Mahmood said the prison system was operating at more than 99 per cent occupancy.

According to the World Prison Brief database, imprisonment rates in England and Wales are higher than in other major European countries, with 141 detainees per one lakh population, against 120 in France, 117 in Spain, 105 in Italy and 68 in Germany.