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 as practicable. On 4 April, Governor O'Friel spoke to the press for the first time, describing the riot as "an explosion of evil which was quite terrible to see". Also that day the Prison Officers Association claimed that Rule 43(a) prisoners were being treated in North Manchester General Hospital for castration wounds, which was repeated by sections of the press despite being categorically denied by the hospital's public relations officer and consultant-in-charge. 29 prisoners surrendered during the day leaving 26 prisoners inside the prison, 11 of whom had been identified by the Prison Service. Also that day a prison officer