Community option ‘is better than prison’

JAILING people for less than six months doesn’t seem to work and community options should be used to ease worsening overcrowding levels in prisons, according to an international inspection committee.

A report by the Council of Europe Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment (CPT) said there was a “very real overcrowding” problem, particularly in the older jails.

The inspection report — some three and a half years since its last audit — said prison numbers had jumped from 3,150 in October 2006 to over 4,000 by January 2010.