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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: Blunkett urged to cut rising jail populations
Ananova
Wednesday 21 Nov 2001 A prison reform charity is calling for emergency action to cut the spiralling prison population. The Home Secretary is being accused of "looking the other way" while the number of people in jail reached new heights. Frances Crook, the Director of the Howard League for Penal Reform, says a national crisis of over-crowding is looming. She commented: "The unnecessary use of prison must be reduced as it is costing the taxpayer a fortune and is likely to add to the problem of crime, both inside prisons and on release." The charity says the number of men, women and children in prison is now at an all-time high of 68,300, an increase of 28,000 in nine years. It is pressing David Blunkett to encourage courts to avoid imposing short jail terms and introduce a legal limit on the number of inmates held in each prison. The Home Office has published a major review of the way criminals are sentenced, but its implementation is believed to have been delayed by emergency anti-terrorism measures. Overcrowded prisons which hold two or three inmates in cells designed for one person include Leeds, where there are 834 prisoners in such cells, and Liverpool's Altcourse, where there are 820. Others are Bedford (130), Birmingham (254), Brixton (238), Camp Hill (222), Canterbury (198), Doncaster (580), Durham (328), Elmley (228), Exeter (352), Glen Parva (404), Leicester (248), Lincoln (304), Liverpool (442), Manchester (474), Norwich (372), Nottingham (228), Pentonville (388), Preston (548), Shrewsbury (209), Wandsworth (472) and Winchester (318).
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