Andy Burnham Plans to Use Female Jails for Men to Tackle Prison Overcrowding

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has asked Justice Secretary Alex Norris to fast-track the development of a plan to utilize the female prison estate for male offenders as part of emergency measures to tackle severe overcrowding across England and Wales, according to reports from the London Evening Standard and the BBC. The strategy forms part of a broader push to create operational headroom and avoid early prisoner releases.

Prison Capacity Pressures and Female Estate Utilization

Male prisons in England and Wales are operating at approximately 99 percent capacity, leaving fewer than 1,000 spare spaces across the entire estate, according to coverage by inkl.com. Facilities such as HMP Wandsworth in London face acute congestion, housing between 1,400 and 1,500 men despite a designed capacity of roughly 960.

To alleviate the strain, Burnham’s plan involves making greater use of the entire prison system, including housing male offenders within the female estate. Government data indicates that women comprise less than 5 percent of the total prison population in Britain, accommodated across 12 dedicated female jails that are themselves experiencing capacity pressures.

Early Release Plans and Public Concern

Despite efforts to expand capacity, Burnham acknowledged that some inmates will still require early release before completing their full sentences to prevent the prison system from collapsing. In a statement posted to social media on Tuesday, the Prime Minister addressed public anxiety surrounding the potential early release of individuals connected to the 2019 killing of Police Constable Andrew Harper.

“I understand the depth of public concern about the potential early release of those involved with the killing of PC Andrew Harper – and I share it,” Burnham said, according to the BBC and inkl.com. “I fully appreciate the anguish of Andrew’s family and, more broadly, of all those victims and families who may see those who caused them such harm not serve their full sentence.”

Burnham emphasized that murderers and offenders convicted of severe sexual offenses—including rapists, serious child sex offenders, and grooming gang members—will remain entirely excluded from the early release scheme.

Three Strands of Further Work

According to the BBC and inkl.com, the Justice Secretary has been tasked with advancing three specific strands of work to generate system headroom ahead of a parliamentary presentation scheduled for early next month:

• Increasing the rate at which foreign national offenders are removed from the prison estate and returned to their countries of origin.
• Finding an early resolution to Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences, a move that could potentially permit the release of lower-risk prisoners.
• Making greater use of the wider prison infrastructure, including the female estate for male offenders.

Police chiefs have raised concerns regarding early release initiatives, and a separate appeal involving fifty police chiefs has urged authorities to prevent the release of PC Harper’s killers, according to reporting by The Times, The Telegraph, and the National Police Chiefs’ Council.

Parliament is scheduled to present the fast-tracked headroom proposals early next month.