at 40,500. This is well over the previous 'peak year' of 1971. Women prisoners make up an increasing proportion of the total. The crisis arising from the unsuitable accommodation into which prisoners are crowded, often two or three to a cell, has led Home Office officials to advocate more liberal policies, because there is no cash to keep up with the increase in inmates.
purpose for such reforms is the principle that the more rights that prisoners enjoy, the more they stand to lose by breaking prison rules. But the problem with prison PROP calls for reforms, summarised in its prisoners charter, which would sweep away the veil of secrecy that hangs over Britain's jails and guarantee basic nignis tor all pri soners. The failure of the labour movement to support the actions which have erupted in the prisons around such demands is testimony to deafness trade union movement to Pooley's words and the strength of the ruling class sentiment that 'they're just bloody criminals they deserve what they get.