£853 a night – Lib Dems reveal true cost cost of locking up prisoners in police cells

The BBC reports:

The cost of housing prison inmates in police cells is double the amount previously thought, the Lib Dems claim. The Ministry of Justice says it costs £385 a night to detain an inmate in a police station when prisons are full. But the Lib Dems say the true cost of ‘Operation Safeguard’ is £853 a night – a figure disputed by the government.

The article quotes Lib Dem justice spokesperson Paul Holmes:

For this amount of money, you could stay in the Ritz. … The government’s incompetence in managing our prison system is staggering and has left the taxpayer picking up a huge bill. Ministers have severely and consistently underestimated the knock-on costs of prison overcrowding. The government has put us in this hopeless position by failing to plan for the future while putting record numbers behind bars in an effort to appear tough on crime.”

Read more by or more about or .
This entry was posted in News.
Advert

3 Comments

  • What a staggering number.
    It would be interesting to see how it breaks down.
    I wonder what knock on costs the home office have excluded from their figure.

Post a Comment

Lib Dem Voice welcomes comments from everyone but we ask you to be polite, to be on topic and to be who you say you are. You can read our comments policy in full here. Please respect it and all readers of the site.

To have your photo next to your comment please signup your email address with Gravatar.

Your email is never published. Required fields are marked *

*
*
Please complete the name of this site, Liberal Democrat ...?

Advert

Recent Comments

  • Tim
    Hywel - I doubt Norwegian gas will be lower carbon than Jackdaw. It is the case (as that report showed) that the remnants of old UK gas fields are (slightly) hi...
  • Simon Robinson
    I do think kindness is a good quality, and we need more of it in politics, but attaching 'kindness' to particular policies is more complex than I think you ackn...
  • Peter Davies
    213 votes across 5 seats. Hard to see a positive here....
  • cim
    "And we are witnessing in Britain illiberal movements on the left and the right, with Farage as a pluto-populist (a politician financed by the ultra-wealthy who...
  • Hywel
    @Tim - Yes I saw the source and looked at it though it didn't make a lot of sense given my level of knowledge of this. But taking that as correct I was curio...