Oakwood Prison named among the UK's most overcrowded in new figures

The G4S-run prison, which is the largest prison in the UK, is currently 16 per cent overcrowded according to the Ministry of Justice's monthly prison population figures.

The Featherstone-based prison has a certified normal accommodation(CNA) of 1,605, but currently has a population of 1,863.

This means more than 200 prisoners are not in a good standard of accommodation in the jail.

CNA is the Prison Service's own measure of accommodation, which represents the good and decent standard accommodation.

Oakwood's population figures rank it as the 34th worst in the country for overcrowding.

Its neighbour HMP Featherstone is also overcrowded. With a population of 646 but a CNA of 611, the prison is currently running at 106 per cent recommended capacity.

This ranks it 58th out of the UK's 117 prisons.

HMP Stafford, which houses paedophile Rolf Harris, is also slightly over recommended capacity.

It is running at 101 per cent with a CNA of 741 but a population of 750. This ranks it 76th.

HMP Brinsford, the young offender's institution on the same site as HMP Featherstone, has seven spaces before it passes its CNA recommendation.

These population figures are part of the latest release by the Prison Reform Trust, who have combined them with the annual prison performance statistics to show that the top 30 most overcrowded prisons in the UK are twice as likely to be rated as failing.

In these performance ratings, released earlier this year, Oakwood, Brinsford and Stafford are all meeting 'the majority of targets' while Featherstone is 'of concern'.

HMPs Leeds, Swansea and Wandsworth, which are the three most over-populated prisons in the country, were all rated as 'of concern'.

Peter Dawson, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: "The bleak state of our prisons is a political failure, shared by all governments of the last two and a half decades.

Three years of austerity have now brutally exposed the system's inherent vulnerability."

Director for HMP Oakwood, John McLaughlin, said: "The decision about where to allocate prisoners is taken by the Ministry of Justice and our contract with them is based on our ability to provide available places, rather than the number of prisoners we look after.

"What these figures make clear is that Oakwood is hitting the majority of operational targets – in addition to all of our contractual targets - and therefore has the activity, training and support in place to help the men in our care to turn away from crime."