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23 August 2011
Last updated at 19:01 ET
Prisons Minister Crispin Blunt has said the disturbances in English cities earlier this month were a "one-off" event.
Mr Blunt said the justice system could cope in the short-term and there would be no long-term effect on the prison population.
Last Friday the prison population hit a new record largely driven by the riots.
Mr Blunt was speaking at the launch of the government's new community service regime.
Since the riots, the prison population has gone up by more than 1,000, hitting a record of almost 87,000 last week.
As of Tuesday, there were 797 suspects on remand, almost two-thirds of all those to have so far come before the courts.
Prisons chiefs have devised contingency plans in case they run out of space.
In his first interview since the disturbances, the prisons minister said that he was completely confident the system could cope and that the jail population would be back to where it was before the trouble within six months.
"We are completely confident that the prison system and justice system are going to be able to cope with what the police are producing for us," he told the BBC.
"This is an exceptional event. There will be a one-off increase in prison numbers as people serve their sentences.
"What we have to do is make sure there are prison places for those sent to prison by the courts and we will continue to do that regardless of how many people are sent to prison."
His comments to the BBC came as he promoted the Ministry of Justice's previously-announced plan to make more use of community-based sentences for some offenders.
Mr Blunt confirmed that from next year unemployed offenders doing unpaid work - known as community payback - will be made to do it full-time rather than spread out over many months.
Under the current arrangements, offenders can work as little as six hours a week on manual labour projects such as cleaning up graffiti.
The scheme aims to force offenders to work a minimum of 28 hours over four days with the fifth spent looking for a job. Ministers say the punishment will also be delivered more immediately after sentence.
Some 100,000 offenders are given community sentences every year and the public can nominate online the jobs they want doing.
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Mr Blunt said the justice system could cope in the short-term and there would be no long-term effect on the prison population.
Last Friday the prison population hit a new record largely driven by the riots.
Mr Blunt was speaking at the launch of the government's new community service regime.
Since the riots, the prison population has gone up by more than 1,000, hitting a record of almost 87,000 last week.
As of Tuesday, there were 797 suspects on remand, almost two-thirds of all those to have so far come before the courts.
Prisons chiefs have devised contingency plans in case they run out of space.
In his first interview since the disturbances, the prisons minister said that he was completely confident the system could cope and that the jail population would be back to where it was before the trouble within six months.
"We are completely confident that the prison system and justice system are going to be able to cope with what the police are producing for us," he told the BBC.
"This is an exceptional event. There will be a one-off increase in prison numbers as people serve their sentences.
"What we have to do is make sure there are prison places for those sent to prison by the courts and we will continue to do that regardless of how many people are sent to prison."
His comments to the BBC came as he promoted the Ministry of Justice's previously-announced plan to make more use of community-based sentences for some offenders.
Mr Blunt confirmed that from next year unemployed offenders doing unpaid work - known as community payback - will be made to do it full-time rather than spread out over many months.
Under the current arrangements, offenders can work as little as six hours a week on manual labour projects such as cleaning up graffiti.
The scheme aims to force offenders to work a minimum of 28 hours over four days with the fifth spent looking for a job. Ministers say the punishment will also be delivered more immediately after sentence.
Some 100,000 offenders are given community sentences every year and the public can nominate online the jobs they want doing.
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