U.K. PM: Riots were "one-off"

UK Prisons Minister Crispin Blunt said Wednesday the disturbances in English cities this month were a "one-off" event. Blunt told the BBC the justice system could cope in the short-term and there would be no long-term effect on the prison population in England and Wales. Last Friday the number of inmates hit a record of almost 87,000, largely driven by the riots, but the government expects numbers to fall again in 2012. Blunt was speaking at the launch of a tougher community service regime. He believed harsher terms for rioters was justified under case law. However the coalition's long-term plan to reform prisons and sentencing was unaffected by the riots, our correspondent added. Ministers have said they wanted to cut costs by reducing the population through the introduction of more robust community sentences for some offenders and improvements in the rehabilitation of offenders. Since the riots, the prison population has gone up by more than 1,000. As of yesterday there were 797 suspects on remand, almost two-thirds of all those to have so far come before the courts. Prisons chiefs have devised contingency plans in case they run out of space. In his first interview since the disturbances, the prisons minister said that he was completely confident the system could cope and that the jail population would be back to where it was before the trouble within six months. "We are completely confident that the prison system and justice system are going to be able to cope with what the police are producing for us". "This is an exceptional event. There will be a one-off increase in prison numbers as people serve their sentences. "What we have to do is make sure there are prison places for those sent to prison by the courts and we will continue to do that regardless of how many people are sent to prison."