Jumbo jails will bring supermarket efficiencies

By Tim Castle

LONDON (Reuters) - Supermarket-like efficiencies will be achieved by building supersize "Titan" prisons holding around 2,500 inmates each, says Lord Carter, who proposed the jumbo jails in a government report on Wednesday.

"We have a lot of corner shop prisons and what we really need is some 21st century (prisons)," he told Reuters in a short interview after the publication of his report.

Prison reform groups and the opposition Conservatives say huge jails are the wrong approach, preferring smaller prisons, but Carter said the megajails would bring many advantages.

"They will be able to offer a range of rehabilitation programmes -- they will have adequate workshops, gymnasiums, classrooms, enough physical capacity to do the job," he said.

"Some older prisons are very constrained," he said.

The government said it would build three of the huge jails, which will replace a number of smaller ageing prisons, as part of plans to ease overcrowding and prepare for a continuing rise in the jail population.

Around 9 percent of jails still in use in England and Wales were built before Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, while Lancaster Castle prison is reputed to be the oldest operating jail in Europe.

The largest jail today is Wandsworth in London, with around 1,500 inmates. Many prisons have as few as 200 places.