Up to 300 are held in HMP prisons such as Rochester and Brixton. The numbers detained are increasing rapidly, from 200 held at any one time in 1990 to over 850 by 1997. Now the British State is imposing a fairer, faster, firmer asylum policy. Several massive detention centres are to be built along the South Coast. Sites include Ashford and Heathrow.
Capitalism produces poverty and alienation which in turn generates crime.
The role of the state is to protect property and the social system of capitalism. The situation is worsening. The prison authorities use to have to beg money from the central government if it wanted to expand or build new prisons. There is no stopping the expansion of the prison building program. Two prisons are built a year, gaols for youth, extensions to existing prisons, detention centres for asylum seekers, new police stations and magistrate courts.