Prisons to overflow again by 2026 despite early release of thousands of prisoners, report finds

Around a quarter of prisoners are sharing cells designed for one person, often with an open toilet, and at the same time violence in prisons is increasing.

The adult male prison estate hit occupancy levels of 99.7 per cent between October 2022 and August 2024, meaning Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood was forced to free thousands of prisoners early.

Despite this several prisons in Yorkshire, such as HMP Hatfield in Doncaster and HMP Wakefield, the category A prison known as Monster Mansion, had only one space available.

Forecasts from the PAC indicate that prison capacity will run out again in early 2026.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, chair of the PAC, said: “Our inquiry has established that severely overcrowded prisons are in danger of becoming pressure cookers.

“Vital rehabilitative work providing purposeful activity including retraining would help to cut high rates of reoffending – but this work is sidelined as staff are forced to focus on maintaining control of increasingly unsafe environments.

“Many prisoners themselves are living in simply inhumane conditions, with their health needs often overlooked.

“Lives are being put at increasing risk by the Government’s historic failures to increase capacity. Despite the recent emergency release of thousands of prisoners, the system still faces total gridlock in a matter of months.

“It is now for the Government to act on the recommendations in our report if disaster is to be averted.”

Ms Mahmood recently announced 14,000 new prison places would be built by 2031 as part of a £2.3bn plan to tackle the overcrowding crisis, but even she admitted this would not be enough.

She said that the sentencing review, led by former Tory Justice Secretary David Gauke, would serve as a separate way of freeing up places.

The Justice Secretary added: “Even with the new supply that we are building, we are still going to run out of prison places because the demand into the system is much higher than the building that is being planned.

"We simply cannot build our way out of this problem, so in order to make sure there’s always a prison place for the people that need to be locked up … we do have to have an independent review of sentencing.”