The country must decide what the purpose of locking criminals away in jail is, the chief inspector of prisons in England and Wales has warned.

In an interview with The Independent, Charlie Taylor said there is a danger that people are leaving prison “far worse” than when they came in.

He said that whoever wins the next election will have to face the question of what prisons are for.

Mr Taylor said: “Ultimately, as a country, we need to decide on who we want to lock up, how long we want to lock people up for, and what we actually want to happen to them.

“If we simply want to lock people up, throw away the key, and keep them in revolting conditions, well, that’s fine.

“But the danger, then, is that when these people come out of prison, they will be far worse than when they went in, they’ll cause more mayhem in communities, and they’ll create more victims of crime.”

He said that the cost of keeping prisoners locked up “doesn’t feel like a great use of taxpayers’ money”.

“At a cost of £50,000 a year to keep someone locked up, it doesn’t feel like a great use of taxpayers’ money,” Mr Taylor said.

He added: “We should be having prisons that create fewer victims, not that are going to end up creating more victims.”

Earlier this year, Mr Taylor told The Guardian that one in 10 prisons in England and Wales should be shut down, singling out Victorian-era inner city jails.

He said there are an “awful lot of jails that have got just far more prisoners than they were originally designed for”.

According to figures released by the Ministry of Justice in July, the number of prisons rated “outstanding” reached its lowest point in six years – at just 10.9%.

Overall, though, 63% of prisons received ratings of either “good” or “outstanding”, showing more than half of the evaluated prisons maintained a satisfactory level of performance.