Prisons in the West Midlands are virtually full to capacity with only around a dozen cells available today.
Emergency measures leading to inmates being sent to police cells or low security open jails are expected to be implemented within days.
The full crisis in the prison service was made clear by new official figures.
There are only around 12 free cells in prisons throughout the region and Home Office figures reveal just 125 vacancies across the country.
Home Secretary John Reid was today preparing an emergency plan, dubbed Operation Safeguard.
West Midlands Police was today taking contingency measures to ensure its stations can cope with an influx of inmates. The plan to use police cells was last used in 2002 when it cost more than £360 per prisoner per night, creating a cost to the taxpayer of more than £10 million in just five months.
Featherstone prison, near Wolverhampton, which has a capacity of 615, had just three spaces available this morning. Others, including Shrewsbury and Winson Green in Birmingham were completely full.
Break-outs
One option being considered by Dr Reid is the transfer of inmates in secure prisons to open jails, where there is minimum security.
A leaked memo reveals he has accepted more break-outs are inevitable and prison chiefs have warned there will be a rise in the numbers absconding.
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis today described it as a “scandalous disregard for public safety”.
Although the Government has a programme to create another 8,000 prison places, they will not come on stream until 2012.
The opposition parties said Labour had only themselves to blame for failing to foresee the crisis and invest in new prisons earlier.
The Bishop of Worcester the Right Reverend Dr Peter Selby, who is Bishop to HM Prisons, said: “We are headed in a direction that simply won’t work. We just need the political courage to say so.”
By Mike Woods
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