Custody "shouldn't be lightly used", Phil Wheatley says

Director general Phil Wheatley said "sheer pressure of numbers" meant prisoners were being moved in and out of jails too quickly to receive adequate attention.

"This means that we are moving people into a local prison from the courts, then moving them out very quickly, with staff not having sufficient time to try to understand the individual needs of individual prisoners," he told the BBC's Breakfast with Frost programme.

His comments come days after a report by the Prison Reform Trust showed that 105 inmates in England and Wales committed suicide last year - the highest number on record.

It is truly shocking that so many people have killed themselves in prison Enver Solomon Prison Reform Trust Prison suicides at all-time high

Mr Wheatley, who took over his role in March, said inmates who had just entered prison were most at risk.

"It is a very, very needy population, coming in with mental health problems, severe drug problems, facing long sentences, often with from their point of view, their life having fallen apart.

"Most of the suicide problems do relate to that period immediately after coming into prison."

Figures released by the Prison Service last month showed the prison population in England and Wales had topped 74,000 for the first time.

Drug problem

Asked whether more prison spaces would be a solution to crime, Mr Wheatley said: "The numbers in prison have been growing, and yes crime is reducing.

"The underlying trend does genuinely appear to be downwards, and we are probably playing our part in that."

But he warned custody should not be over-used, saying: "We [prison] are not the answer to crime.

"It is expensive, it is disruptive to the loved ones of those who come inside, often entirely innocent families and children who find that their whole life has to change as a result, it is a difficult experience to get through, it shouldn't be lightly used."

Mr Wheatley also told the programme prisons faced a huge drug problem, saying that three quarters of people entering jail had used drugs immediately beforehand.

But he insisted the Prison Service did not "turn a blind eye" to drug use, "because it is corrosive to running prisons that are decent. It prevents people any chance of going straight."