A PENAL reform charity has released figures which reveal that HMP Hewell had more than 25 per cent more inmates than recommended towards the end of last year and says it is facing "significant problems".

In a recent report, the Howard League for Penal Reform released figures of how many suicides in prisons there had been in 2014. At the same time, it released figures on the number of inmates in each prison.

As of November 2014, the certified normal accommodation (CNA) figure for HMP Hewell was 1,003, but the actual number of prisoners being housed was 1,272 - 26.8 per cent more than what was recommended.

The CNA is the prison trust's own measure of how many prisoners can be held in decent and safe accommodation and reflects how many inmates a prison was designed and built to hold.

Andrew Neilson, director of campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “Hewell is a prison facing significant problems.

“Only two months ago, an inspection report revealed that 40 per cent of the cells were overcrowded. More than half of all prisoners on the closed site were locked in their cells during the working day.

“These failures are systemic. Hewell is one of many prisons across the country which have seen prisoner numbers rise as staff numbers have been cut.

“Cramming more people into overcrowded and understaffed prisons leads only to more self-harm, more violence and more victims.”

The Howard League for Penal Reform is the oldest penal reform charity in the UK. It was established in 1866 and is named after John Howard, one of the first prison reformers. The Howard League for Penal Reform is entirely independent of government and is funded by voluntary donations and membership subscriptions.

Redditch MP Karen Lumley said: "These figures are obviously a cause for concern. I will be looking into the matter further and raising it with the Ministry of Justice.

"We need prison to punish those who offend, and then help them turn their lives around so we reduce the number of repeat offenders and reduce the amount of crime overall. The Government has had to make a realistic assessment, across the board, of how much it can afford to spend, while making sure prisons run more efficiently and effectively.

"To make sure those convicted of a crime are able to serve their time, the Government is making sure there are enough prison places, and by 2015, there will be more adult, male prison places than when we came into power."

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), which runs the prison service, said it does not use the CNA figure to measure prison capacity , but instead measures it by "operational capacity".

Despite this claim, the MoJ still uses the CNA figure in the majority of its prison population documents. The spokesman refused to directly comment on the CNA figures.