West Mercia Police station cells could be used to hold prisoners due to overcrowding
West Mercia's police stations are ready to hold prisoners to help ease overcrowding if needed, according to the region's Police and Crime Commissioner.
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The comments, from Conservative Commissioner for West Mercia, John Campion, come after the Government triggered 'Operation Safeguard' - an initiative used to help ease the pressure on the country's prisons.
The initiative allows prisoners to be held in police cells, and has been enacted twice before - in 2023 and 2024.
Figures released on Monday show the number of serving prisoners is at a six-month high, with 87,556 people currently in custody.
The male prison estate is currently operating at more than 99 per cent occupancy, the Ministry of Justice said.
Mr Campion said that although prisoners have never been temporarily held in police cells in West Mercia, custody suites across the force area (Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire) are prepared if required.
He said: "This is a symptom of a broken system that needs fixing. Local custody blocks should not be used to keep prisoners due to failings in our prisons to meet demand.
"In West Mercia we are playing our part, with record levels of police officers who are out in communities tackling crime, arresting and charging more offenders than ever before and using out of court resolutions to reduce reoffending.
"But the creaking courts and prison system is falling way short of the service local communities expect.
"The national Government needs to address the prison capacity crisis and quickly, by increasing prison places, setting a long-term plan to cut the backlog in our crown courts, and implementing the recommendations from the Sentencing Review when it’s published in the Spring.”
