The Justice Secretary has admitted that the Government will be unable to build its way out of the problem of overcrowded jails.

Lord Falconer of Thoroton, QC, said that the only long-term option for dealing with the crisis at 141 prisons was for fewer criminals to be sent to jail.

With the prison population reaching another record high of 80,846, including 400 in police cells and 30 in court cells, Lord Falconer is trying desperately to avoid ordering the early release of thousands of offenders to ease the pressure.

He has inherited plans from John Reid, the Home Secretary, for a huge jail building programme that will provide 8,000 extra spaces by 2012.

But hurried attempts to increase the size of Rochester jail in Kent by 300 spaces were halted when council officials discovered that the Prison Service had started building work without planning permission.

Now Lord Falconer has conceded that simply increasing the size of the £2.2 billion a year prison estate is not a workable long-term option.

“There are some immediate plans to increase the capacity of the prison estate but clearly we cannot carry on building prisons indefinitely and we need to look at new approach-es,” Lord Falconer said during a visit to Norwich prison.

He said the sentencing guide-lines issued to judges and magistrates needed to be looked at again, with particular focus on penalties for nonviolent offenders. “More offenders who are not considered a threat to the public and who would face a term of 12 months or less must be dealt with in the community,” he said.

Lord Falconer also admitted that the decision to move prison and probation services from the Home Office into a new Ministry of Justice had been not helped in tackling the prison population crisis.

He said that it was now time for longer-term and consistent leadership of the situation.

“I acknowledge the situation hasn’t been helped by ministerial changes at the Home Office and there is a need for continuity if the Ministry of Justice is going to tackle this successfully,” he said.

Lord Falconer has called in the government troubleshooter Lord Carter of Coles to look again at the problem and map out a ten-year strategy for the prison service.

Lord Carter carried out a review of correctional services in 2003 that urged diverting low-risk offenders out of the court system, income-related fines for low-risk offenders and more demanding community penalties for medium-risk offenders.

One idea that he is now looking at is further privatisation by expanding the number of services in jails that are provided by the private sector.

Asked about Lord Falconer’s comments, a Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “When launching the Ministry of Justice, Lord Falconer said he was committed to ensuring that there are enough prison places to deal with all those whom the courts send to prison and to develop an estate strategy over the next ten years that will ensure we can renew the prison estate, as well as ensure there are enough places.”

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