Government planning big new prisons

By Tim Castle

LONDON (Reuters) - Justice Secretary Jack Straw said on Wednesday the government would spend 1.2 billion pounds to create 10,500 extra jail places by 2014 to help tackle a crisis of overcrowding in prisons.

He said this would increase jail capacity to 96,000 places from around 81,500 now.

Reporting on a review of prisons by life peer Lord Carter, Straw said the government would close some older jails and build up to three large "Titan" prisons housing up to 2,500 inmates each.

"The measures I have announced ... will fulfil our commitment to provide a modernised prison system which protects the public from the most serious offenders," Straw said.

Legislation on indeterminate sentences -- blamed for adding to the overcrowding problem -- would be altered so that they could not be given for tariffs of less than two years, he added.

Under these sentences, introduced under the 2003 Criminal Justice Act, offenders are kept in jail until they are no longer deemed to be a risk to the public.

At the end of last week, jails were so full with 81,864 prisoners that 177 offenders were being held in police cells.

The government has been forced to release 11,000 prisoners early since June to cope with the lack of cells.