Underfunded, overcrowded, and accused of failing to look after their inmates, prisons are in crisis.

Chris Baker hears that there is a broader picture in the call for reform

England and Wales has the highest prison population in western Europe.

There are 140 people in prison for every 100,000 of the population - compared to fewer than 100 in France and Germany.

It is no wonder that many people think the prison system is ripe for reform.

Academics and lawyers who work around and within the system have found a worrying increase in cracks in the regime.

Cases of abuse by prison workers, and suicide and self-harm by inmates, appear to be on the increase.

As with the rest of the public sector, it is often argued that a lack of funding is the chief culprit.

Chief prisons inspector Anne Owers - the former director of lawyers' civil liberties group Justice - recently reported that nearly two people kill themselves every week in the creaking prison system of England and Wales.

She put the blame squarely on overcrowding, and a lack of suitable treatment for people with drug abuse or mental health problems.

While there are high-profile cases, such as the recent alleged suicide of Britain's most prolific convicted serial killer, Harold Shipman, most cases of prisoners taking their own lives have far more to do with shortcomings in a system that is finding it difficult to cope with pressures put on it from outside.

Andrew Coyle, director of the International Centre for Prison Studies (ICPS) at King's College London, says: 'Since 1997, there have been 661 new criminal offences introduced in this country, and that doesn't take into account the additional ones in the most recent Criminal Justice Act.

That is something which is a feature of England and Wales that doesn't happen in other countries, and you need to take that into account when you look at specific issues like suicide and the treatment of vulnerable people.'

When any organisation faces a 50% increase in business without a comparable increase in resources, corners will have to be cut and difficulties are bound to emerge, he says.

Most prisoners are spending up to 23 hours each day locked in their cells and in such cases, even young people will start wondering whether life is worth living.

Since Shipman's death, four or five other prisoners will have taken their own lives, Mr Coyle adds.

Rodney Warren, director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, admits.

'For those of us who have not been there, it is difficult to understand the level of despair that someone in that situation, especially how someone who has received a long sentence, must feel.'

Today, the use of prisons as a punitive measure in England and Wales has gone beyond the European norm, and Mr Coyle maintains that it does not seem to be working in terms of reducing crime or using public money efficiently.

The ICPS is looking into practices in other jurisdictions such as Scotland to see if lessons can be learned, and mistakes avoided.

One possible area where a lesson could be learned is through the furore surrounding the possible early release of Maxine Carr, convicted of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice through providing a false alibi for Soham killer Ian Huntley last year.

While one leading criminal defence solicitor, who preferred not to be named, brands Carr's three-year sentence as 'mean' and a political decision aimed at 'pandering to the Daily Express', Mr Coyle points out that if the judge had wanted to impose a higher sentence, he could have.

'To say this is cheating justice is a bit disingenuous,' he adds.

In Scotland, the sentence begins when it is delivered, and does not take into account time spent on remand, he adds.

If the same applied here, headlines screeching about Carr serving a reduced sentence would never have emerged.

On the thorny issue of sentencing, Mr Warren says: 'I hear time and again from people who go to prison that the first four weeks are the worst, and if they were released after four weeks then they would make sure they never went back.

'After those four weeks, people become institutionalised and get more used to it, so going back doesn't seem as demanding.

It seems to me that if prison is going to work, it must make sure people don't want to go back.'

But he is not so sure about new 'weekend prison' pilots launched this month, where prisoners can return home under electronic surveillance in order to keep their jobs and homes.

'It could cause damage to the family if there is [that sentence],' he explains.

'And I don't understand whether a three-month sentence would be three months' of weekends or the same number of days.

But it's right to have this sort of creative thinking about sentencing - it's very helpful.'

The new National Offender Management Service - which brings together the Prison and Probation Services in a major overhaul of correctional services - will have a brief to be more creative.

Speaking at a Probation Service conference last week, prisons and probation minister Paul Goggins said restorative justice - where offenders compensate the community for their crimes - will be a key plank of the new system.

He added: 'The new service will be responsible for improving the enforcement and credibility of community punishments, so that prison is not the first option for less serious offenders.'

The incarceration of juveniles has been another area of concern among those who watch the prison system carefully.

For the past ten months, the Howard League for Penal Reform has brought several test cases relating to the treatment of children in prison.

One action brought in August 2002 found that children in prison were subject to the Children Act 1989, with the requisite duties of care, which Prison Service guidelines had laid down on paper but had not followed in practice.

'It was a landmark decision,' the Howard League's Fran Russell says.

Local authorities and social services, and the Prison Service, now have clear guidelines to follow.

'The Prison Service now has produced a very good policy, but reports from the prisons inspector have still criticised the way children are being held in some prisons,' Ms Russell adds.

'This has been a long-standing problem.'

Once again, resources seem to be an issue with children, who have serious problems being locked up for 23 hours each day without any regime of care - perhaps because the overstretched Prison Service does not have the tools to deal with them.

In another recent case, a prison was found to have incarcerated a youngster for sometimes in excess of 23 hours each day in a cell with nothing more than 'some jigsaw puzzles and a book', Ms Russell says.

It had a duty to ensure more diversions were provided than that.

'What has happened? Very little,' she complains.

'The Prison Service sent out some letters telling governors that they had to provide regimes [of exercise and diversions for prisoners] but it hasn't made much difference on the ground.

Kids are still being locked up.'

If a child is seen as a troublemaker they will be segregated regardless of their needs or behavioural problems, Ms Russell adds.

'There are several cases of young people with serious mental health problems being put in segregation because the prisons don't have the facilities to deal with these kids,' she adds.

The Howard League is involved in several cases of that nature at the moment.

'I'm very concerned about the conditions prisoners are kept in,' adds Mr Warren.

'From a philosophical standpoint, we have to be clear about what the objectives of prison are - if it's just the deprivation of liberty, then the conditions have to be at least acceptable.' As long as public opinion is unclear, the way the Prison Service treats its charges is likely to remain a matter of contention, he adds.

For Mr Coyle, reform of the prison system must take the bigger picture into account.

'You cannot look at the prison system in isolation,' he says.

'It has to be looked at in the context of the criminal justice system and the values of society and its expectations of the criminal justice system.'

Mr Warren agrees.

'There are many aspects of the criminal justice system that would benefit from continual review, and the Prison Service is one of them,' he says.

'I would not advocate total reform of the Prison Service, but I would advocate a review of every aspect of the criminal justice system.

We need to have a clear understanding that we cannot keep sentencing people for longer and creating new criminal offences, and then be surprised that the prisons cannot cope with the number of prisoners.

There needs to be more strategic thinking across the entire criminal justice system.'

See [2004] Gazette, 5 February, 24