Lindsay Lohan is jailed, then freed again

Troubled actress Lindsay Lohan was jailed then released within hours today (AP)

Troubled actress Lindsay Lohan was jailed then released within hours in a farcical routine caused by overcrowding in Los Angeles' prisons.

She had been due to serve a 30-day sentence for violating probation but was freed from the Century Regional Detention centre less than five hours after arriving.

Lohan, 25, had until November 9 to report to the women's jail. A judge last week jailed her after Lohan broke her probation by being thrown off a community service assignment at a women's shelter.

The judge imposed a complicated sentence, telling Lohan that she will now have to perform all of her community service at the county morgue or risk serving an additional 270 days in jail.

It is Lohan's fifth jail sentence since being arrested twice for drunken driving in 2007.