Mr. John Clinton:

The numbers have decreased, but if one looks at an annual report of the Prison Service going back to around 2007, what the Prison Service referred to at the time was bed capacity within the prison system. When I worked in Wheatfield Prison, it started off with ten units with 16 cells each, taking the ground floor as an example, so there were 160 on the floor. The minute they started to double up, extra beds were added to the cells and people started to talk about bed capacity. However, our workshops and facilities were all designed on the basis of 320 people being in the place. Within a short time, that number had increased to 400 or whatever the case may have been. Once this happens, in our view, one moves into the issue of overcrowding within the system, yet we still see that the term used is "bed capacity". It is like having a bunk bed for two in a box room in a house and then putting three people into the room. Everyone has a bed but, in the case of a prison, there are no facilities to cater for anyone beyond the original capacity. There has been an improvement over recent years in bringing down the numbers, but a simple political decision or any change could in turn change this overnight, and we would still only have the same resources the following day to deal with whatever would happen.