Inmates at Shropshire prison get over 5,000 extra days' jail after breaking rules
More than 5,000 days of additional imprisonment were imposed on prisoners who were found to have broken rules at Shropshire's only jail last year, figures have revealed.
The figures show that 5,216 days of additional imprisonment were handed out at Stoke Heath, near Market Drayton, in 2015.
Nationally, more than a million days – or 2,890 years – of additional imprisonment were imposed on prisoners found to have broken prison rules in the past six years, Ministry of Justice figures confirmed.
Analysis by the Howard League for Penal Reform also shows the number of additional days handed nationally out increased by almost 38 per cent between 2014 and 2015.
Elsewhere in the region 5,404 days of additional imprisonment were imposed at Oakwood, near Wolverhampton, last year.
The Howard League previously published a report in 2015, Punishment in Prison: The World of Prison Discipline, which looks at how jails in England and Wales operate disciplinary hearings called adjudications, where allegations of rule-breaking are tried.
The hearings, which cost £400,000 to £500,000 a year in total, are mainly for disobedience or property offences, which increase as prisons come under pressure due to overcrowding and staff cuts.
A prisoner found guilty at an adjudication can face punishments ranging from loss of canteen to solitary confinement and extra days of imprisonment.
At Stoke Heath there were 424 adjudications last year and at Oakwood there were 514. The latest figures were provided in answer to a parliamentary question.
Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: "
Our prison system is overcrowded and yet the system of adjudications simply feeds further pressure on the prisons."
The Prison Service said it was "right" that offenders who break rules were properly punished.
