news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7166763.stm

Nearly half of these are 'remand prisoners' that means people who have as yet not been convicted of any crime.
How many of these people are in jail,but are innocent?
This is a mess,and it needs fixing fast!

Well spotted SE and thanks for posting this link.

In the time I spent wrongly incarcerated in Her Majesty's Prison Estate I saw many attempted suicides and several deaths.

I don't think the vast majority of people know or care what effect prison can have on people, be they innocent or guilty.

And it's this very lack of concern which, I believe, is the germ of moral sickness that will lead to the end of the human race within our time here.

The vast general public believes those in prison deserve to be there and must be guilty .

And once there they seem to believe it's perfectly OK for society to abrogate it's responsibilty for those in it's care-whether in jail or otherwise-and for extra judicial punishment to be metered out whether physical , mental or by humiliation.

Yet this completely contradicts the whole notion of jail-if those that enforce the law do not obey it, what hope is there for anyone to "reform".

It sickens me to think most simply forget that prisoners also have familes-mothers, fathers, wives , husbands and children who are also punished by first being deprived of a family member or even worse if one prisoner suicides.