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On 'All Things Considered' this week (Sunday 27 September at 8.30am, repeated on Wednesday 30 September at 6.30pm), Roy Jenkins guest is Dame Anne Owers, H.M. Chief Inspector of Prisons.

The United Kingdom locks up more people than any comparable democracy. The prison population now stands at more than 80,000 - up by a quarter in the past seven years.

Many are held in cramped and unhygienic conditions, and risk violence and self-harm. There is often inadequate treatment for prisoners with serious mental health problems, and insufficient opportunity to train for life outside.

Drawing attention to such facts is no way to win popularity at a time of demands for longer sentences, and with a wide perception of jails as state-sponsored holiday camps. But my guest today insists that the whole system is under 'sustained and chronic pressure', and sounding such alarms is part of her job.

Dame Anne Owers has been the Chief Inspector of Prisons for the past eight years, and she has not held back from criticising government policies she believes make the situation worse.

She came to the job after leading first the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, and then the law reform group Justice - and to help fill her spare moments now, she's recently been appointed the new chair of the churches' relief agency Christian Aid.

For further information:

Christian Aid
Tel: 0845 859 0006

Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons for England and Wales (HMI Prisons)
Tel: 0845 859 0006

Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants
Tel: 0845 859 0006