Police cells will temporarily be used to hold prisoners in a stop-gap measure to cope with overcrowding in jails, the British government said on Tuesday.
The emergency action, dubbed "Operation Safeguard", allows inmates to be held in police cells when prisons are full, and was previously used from February 2023 to October last year, Reuters said.
The prison population in England and Wales has doubled in the last 30 years, according to official data, leading to overcrowding as new places have failed to keep pace with demand. Justice systems in Scotland and Northern Ireland are run separately.
In a statement to parliament, Shabana Mahmood said the prison system was operating at more than 99% occupancy.
January saw the highest average monthly prison population growth in almost two years, as part of a rising trend in the last three months that "has only just begun to slow", she added.
"Given the recent increase in demand, it is necessary, and prudent, for me to temporarily reactivate Operation Safeguard to better manage the flow of offenders into the prison estate," Mahmood said.
According to the World Prison Brief database, imprisonment rates in England and Wales are higher than in other major European countries, with 141 detainees per 100,000 population, against 120 in France, 117 in Spain, 105 in Italy and 68 in Germany.
