More prisons to be built to relieve overcrowding

Britain's Justice Secretary Jack Straw said yesterday the government would spend 1.2 billion pounds ($2.4 bn) to create 10,500 extra jail places by 2014 to help tackle a crisis of overcrowding in prisons.

He said this would increase jail capacity to 96,000 places from around 81,500 now.

Reporting on a review of prisons by life peer Lord Carter, Straw said the government would close some older jails and build up to three large prisons housing up to 2,500 inmates each.