Prison Crisis (Part 42 of an Endless Series)

Today's Observer carries this piece about the intractable problem with prison capacity, which is entirely the fault of Government over the last decade or so, for creating more and more crimes, lengthening sentences, limiting parole, and doing sod-all to provide sufficient room for the resulting hordes of prisoners.
The article mentions predicted future numbers. A couple of years ago I was at a meeting and as part of the day we broke up into discussion groups. A couple of Civil Servants were in my group and I had an off-the-record glance at some spreadsheets graphing projected prison populations. I shan't quote details, but I wouldn't be surprised if the outturn in the next five years or so isn't nearer 110,000 than 100,000. You read it here first.