Hundreds to move to open prisons to ease crowding

Hundreds of prisoners will be moved into open prisons within days to ease pressure on Britain's bursting jails.

Low-risk offenders who are serving less than a year will be automatically moved into the low-security, category D jails for the final 28 days of their sentence under the plans. Prison Service officials insisted that sex offenders and people convicted of violent crime will not be moved, and prison officers would be able to stop any prisoner thought to be a risk to the public being put into an open prison.

But critics warned that the move would increase the numbers absconding from open prisons.

The three-month scheme will start over Easter, and will use the last 500 empty spaces in the prison system.Prisoners will be given a "streamlined" risk assessment before being transferred for the last weeks of their sentence. The first prisoners will be moved to open jails in the next few days.

Governors were alerted at lunchtime yesterday by the National Offender Management Service (NOMS).

Ministers have been forced to hold prisoners in police cells, with the Home Secretary John Reid considering leasing prison ships. A total of 556 people absconded from open prisons during the last financial year but officials insist that was about half the number absconding in 1997.

Helen Edwards, chief executive of NOMS, said: "By making best use of the full range of the estate, moving low-risk offenders sentenced to less than 12 months to category D prisons for the last 28 days of their sentence, we can make the best use of places in the rest of the estate for those who are at risk to the public."

But David Davis, the shadow Home Secretary, said: "We already know from leaked memos that John Reid has been appraised of the serious risk of increased absconds from placing certain category offenders in open jails and that he said he was willing to take that risk. Now the public are set to pay the price of his recklessness with their own safety."

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "The Government is using open prisons as an overspill for short-term offenders when they are designed as a halfway house for long-term prisoners. Such a move will almost inevitably lead to higher levels of absconding from open prisons."