The prison population reached yet another all-time high this week – 80,658. This is almost double the figure for 1993. Prisons are full to capacity. It is incredible that ministers could not have seen this crisis approaching. They will have been able to monitor the steady increase in numbers in recent years, and so should not have to resort to panic measures. In one bus station car park last week I saw a mobile police caravan with a large sign on it saying “custody suite”. Apart from it sounding unfeasibly luxurious, it really ought to have just said ‘panic measure’. It doesn’t help matters that at a time when Government should be dealing with the prisons crisis, all those with oversight of prisons are focusing on is moving offices from the Home Office to the new Minister of Justice. ‘Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic’ is a cliché, but an appropriate one perhaps in this case.

What should really worry us though is the fact that some use the prisons crisis as an excuse to argue we should be sending fewer people to prison. Let me make something clear: The number of people sent to prison should depend on the number of people committing imprisonable offences. It should not depend on whether there is a spare cell for them or not.

The community, under the aegis of Parliament, decides what crimes are worthy of custodial sentences. It is then for the state to ensure that sufficient prison capacity exists to cope with that number. An inexorably increasing prison population suggests that crime is continually on the increase – not the message John Reid likes to give us – and that ‘something must be done’. If we get decisions right about sentencing policy, a falling prison population should also not be seen as an excuse to toughen up sentencing for the sake of it.

In the short term, this might mean increasing prison capacity, but if we get it right, it should mean a reduction in the medium to long term. It is easy to forget that the ‘state’ has a duty of care towards those in prison – however much we may abhor the crimes they have committed. It is surely unacceptable for a 14-year old boy to be able to kill himself whilst in custody. 750 prisoners have killed themselves in prison since Labour came to power. If that number were killed in a single rail crash, we would have a major public inquiry. Instead, it is just swept under the carpet.

The majority of prisoners have mental health problems, drug addictions or a combination of both. Too many lack basic literacy and numeracy. It is no wonder that reoffending rates are rising, since Government is doing nothing to tackle any of these problems. If they did, and if reoffending rates began to fall, then we would no longer need to expand our prison system. 67% of prisoners re-offend within two years of release, 78% of men aged 18-21.

These statistics are a dismaying litany of failure.