Karl Dalton

We need short-term solutions.

And in the long term, we need something like a Torrenton Hall site or somewhere else, a big prison to be built to alleviate the pressure.

The Futures Capacity Group sat last year and if they build 1,200 to 1,500 spaces by 2030, today's figures will still be overcrowded.

And that's the crisis.

Building an open centre is not the solution and it's a waste of taxpayers' money at this juncture.

And the reason why you say people in the wider society need to be concerned about this is because of the risk of recidivism, that if you're not getting the rehab in prison, you're likely to come back in through the revolving door.

Absolutely.

Prison officers are fantastic at doing their job when they can.

But in an environment where we can't get them into structured activities, where the psychology and psychiatry services aren't available to them because they're simply swamped, with all of this, you're turning people back out in the streets without receiving the help they need in a prison, and which our members are fantastic at giving them, which are a toy in their hands.

And we're asking the Minister today and tomorrow and every day to do something to review the capital building projects

and do something that will make a huge difference, both to the prison population, to society and to ourselves.

Carl, thanks for taking the time to speak to us today.