A record of 4,045 women are housed in British prisons. In 2001-2002 the female prison population increased by 28%. It is conclusive that women are incarcerated, predominantly for drug-related offences and violence. This significant increase has placed the women's prison educational and drug rehabilitation programmes in jeopardy due to overcrowding.
It is a similar feature when investigating men's prisons also. Due to overcrowding there is a shortage of workshops, educational projects, drug treatment and offending behaviour programmes not to mention staff shortages. Nearly two thirds of the UK's prisoners are being held in overcrowded jails and Shrewsbury is a typical example of this with 331 prisoners but only 184 places.
Contrarily, the prison service is also beneficial to the inmates it detains and also Britain as a whole. Crime is falling. Why? Prison works. Crime has fallen chiefly because more offenders are in prison. Between 1993 and 2001 the average number of people in prison rose from 45,633 to 66,300, an increase of over 45%. What happened to crime over this period? According to the BCS crime fell from 19.1 million in 1995 to 12.6 million in 2001/02. Was it just a coincidence? Armies of academics argue the toss, but no one disputes that, while in jail offenders cannot break into your house, whereas when on a community sentence they still have the free time to steal. For example, to compare a two-year community sentence with a two-year prison sentence, both from the date of sentence, would reduce the post-prison reconviction rates by about 50% as only half the sentence is served. Thus the 63% reconviction rate for all males placed on a community sentence should be compared with about 29% reconviction rate for the one year in the community following a two-year custodial sentence. Re-offending rates are particularly low and this is predominantly down to the rehabilitation programmes in practice in prisons.
