Bristol Prison is one of the 20 most overcrowded in England and Wales.

The prison in Horfield has 610 convicts even though it is designed for 424, making it 17th on the list.

The Prison Reform Trust fears prison overcrowding and high re-offending levels are in danger of being regarded by Government Ministers as a fact of life and too difficult to fix.

This summer, in which the prison population reached a record high of more than 84,000 prisoners, almost two thirds of the prisons in England and Wales are officially overcrowded according to the latest Ministry of Justice figures.

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: "Pressure on public spending means that ministers can no longer afford to be complacent about prison overcrowding or the high reconviction rates it leads to.

"Simply building more prisons is an expensive dead end. The only way to reserve prison for serious and violent offenders is to cut out all unnecessary use of breach and remand and tackle sentence inflation and the growth of indeterminate punishments. Investment in treatment for addicts and mental healthcare would all pay dividends. It must be time for co-ordinated effort across departments."

The most overcrowded prison in England and Wales is Shrewsbury. Designed to hold 177 men, it now holds 316.