1990 Strangeways Prison riot administrative offices on the lower floor and the chapel on the upper floor. Remand prisoners were held in wings G, H, I and K of a separate prison, linked to the main prison through workshops and a kitchen. The Certified Normal Accommodation Figure for Strangeways, the number of prisoners the prison was designed to hold, was 970. The population of the prison had increased in the months before the riot, from 1,417 in January 1990 to a peak of 1,658 on 27 March. On 1 April, the prison contained 1,647 prisoners – about 925 convicted adult prisoners, 500 remand prisoners
1990 Strangeways Prison riot of drugs in controlling prisoners. While Unger was inside the prison twelve C&R units attempted to regain control of E wing, in what became known as the "battle for E wing". Prisoners built barricades and threw scaffolding poles at the C&R units, and after approximately thirty minutes the C&R units withdrew without regaining control of the wing. By the end of the third day of the riot prisoners still controlled the upper levels of the prison, but prison officers had regained control of the lower level, and a Home Office statement was issued: During the course of the evening prison