More On Prison Crisis

I guess launching a massive advertising campaign for prison officers to co-inside with the naff Hidden Heroes Day was no accident, but as this editorial in the Guardian points out, the exercise will be futile if changes are not made in order to reduce staff exiting just as fast as they are recruited:- 

The Guardian view on prisons: staff will be key to any turnaround

The atrocious state of English and Welsh prisons is well documented. In the past six months, inspectors have issued urgent notifications about conditions in three jails. Earlier this year, a German court rejected an extradition request by the UK government on the grounds that the suspect’s safety could not be guaranteed. The view of Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector, is that 14 Victorian prisons are so decrepit that they should be closed down.

The outcry following the recent escape by Daniel Khalife from HMP Wandsworth drew attention to staffing issues. That day, 80 prison officers – 40% of the total – were absent. Now, a Guardian investigation has revealed that prison officers are quitting to work for the police or Border Force instead – a particular problem for prisons near ports or airports – while the Prison Officers’ Association believes criminal gangs are sending members to work in prisons in order to smuggle drugs and phones. Staffing levels in jails including Feltham are so low that psychologists have had to talk to young offenders through cell doors, instead of in therapy rooms. One prison officer described violence there as “off the scale”.

The crisis is so acute as to be undeniable. But the government’s response, of pointing to the planned expansion of prison capacity and staff numbers, is not persuasive. Boosting the numbers of recruits – as the Ministry of Justice aims to with a new campaign – will not solve the underlying problem unless retention rates also improve. Last year, almost half of those who left prison officer roles had been in them for fewer than three years. Nor will new buildings with more cells provide a solution. While the oldest prisons are dilapidated, modern prisons at Woodhill and Whitemoor, which are not overcrowded, are among those that have recently failed inspections.

Like most rightwing parties, the Conservatives value toughness on law and order. In the past decade, longer sentences have been handed down by judges, while court delays caused by years of cuts, followed by the pandemic, have led to a huge increase in the number of prisoners on remand. Currently they are 15,500 of a total prison population of 87,685 – which is not far off the all-time record of 88,000, and predicted to rise sharply in the next two years.

It might seem counterintuitive to make it harder to become a prison officer with the situation as it is. But the current training, of between seven and 10 weeks, is one of the shortest courses in Europe and a national embarrassment. The Prison Officers’ Association is right to call for the current lower age limit of 18 to be raised, and for in-person interviews to be reinstated. Quantity is no substitute for quality.

Conservative ministers have been responsible for some terrible decisions, notably Chris Grayling’s failed privatisation of the probation service. But the current problems cannot be blamed on an individual. The system as a whole has been badly managed, and its leaders should face increased scrutiny. Parliament’s justice committee has a role to play here. Its report on the prisons workforce is expected shortly. Endemic violence should be investigated separately.

A policy of locking more people up for longer, without any clear strategy for rehabilitation, may satisfy short-term political goals. In the longer term, it is more likely to increase crime than reduce it. Such failures deserve to be judged harshly.

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The Guardian has been digging into the prison situation recently and points out there's serious problems with both recruitment and training:-

Criminal gangs in UK sending recruits to train as prison officers, union warns

Organised crime groups are sending associates to train as prison officers with the “sole purpose” of smuggling drugs and phones into jail, the Prison Officers’ Association has warned.

The POA, the union representing prison workers, blamed low pay and said online interviews were also contributing to the prison service “hiring the wrong people”.

Drugs remain a huge problem in prisons despite an increase in testing facilities. Woodhill high security prison in Milton Keynes was put into special measures recently after inspectors declared it unsafe, with 38% of prisoners testing positive for drugs.

A POA spokesperson said: “Organised crime groups realise that there’s a lot of money to be made by smuggling contraband into prisons. People can be recruited as a prison officer and go into [the jail] with that sole purpose of bringing contraband in, to make a lot of money. They can do it by themselves or for an organised crime group.”

The spokesperson added: “You get paid to train and you do whatever you want after that. If you have a good run, you don’t get caught and get out after five or six months having made a few bucks. It sounds a bit surreal. But that’s actually happening.”

Asked about the scale of the problem, they said: “In the vast majority of prisons, a lot of young staff could be conditioned into bringing stuff in, and other staff come to us with the sole intended purpose of taking stuff in.”

The age limit to become a prison officer has been reduced substantially over the past 40 years. In 1987, it was lowered from 25 to 20, and then to 18 in 1999 to boost recruitment in London and the south-east in particular. The starting salary increased recently to £30,702, or £35,931 in inner London.

The POA said staff shortages across the prison estate had prompted a cut in the training time from 10 to seven weeks. The Ministry of Justice disputes this, with a source saying that the 10-week course now included elements of “home learning”.

Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, said it would be reasonable to assume younger officers could be more susceptible to corruption. “The age of officers who are coming through is younger, they used to be 21 minimum and that’s now gone. So you [have] got some very young people coming in. And that’s fine, as many of them are outstanding, but they’re going to need a bit more looking after,” Taylor said.

He added: “There are always two types of corruption [in prisons]. You’ve got the very sophisticated type of corruption, where someone linked with organised crime almost goes in as a sort of sleeper. But most corruption isn’t that – most corruption is that someone naive gets into a relationship, sexual or otherwise, with a prisoner which is inappropriate. And of course, once you’ve been pulled in, it’s very hard to stop.”

Taylor pointed to a case earlier this year at HMP Berwyn in north Wales, where 18 female guards were fired and three were jailed for having relationships with prisoners. “In those cases, you have to ask, were they recruiting the right people? Or were they training these people properly in order to understand the risks of potential corruption?”

The Ministry of Justice says it has made a £100m investment in airport-style security in prisons, buying 97 X-ray body scanners that as of October 2022 had foiled more than 28,000 attempts to smuggle contraband into jails.

But the POA claims these scanners are often not staffed because of a shortage of officers. “They are not manned every day, as mad as it sounds. At certain times of the day they might not be manned. So if you are working with another corrupt officer, he might say to you: ‘There’s no one on the portal today so come through with all the stuff.’”

The POA wants an end to online interviews and a return to in-person panels, including governors. “We are hiring the wrong people and people who can’t even look you in the eye,” said the spokesperson.

The union also wants an increase in the minimum age of prison officers to 21 and better gate security to stop contraband arriving with corrupt officers.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We have bolstered the counter-corruption unit that works round the clock to clamp down on the minority who undermine our exemplary service with their dangerous behaviour and we will not hesitate to punish those who break the rules.

“On top of this, we have invested £100m in prison security such as enhanced gate security with X-ray body scanners, which has driven up the finds of drugs, weapons and other contraband.”

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Interesting to note that Frances Crook does not agree with closing the large Victorian  prisons precisely because of the clue in their designation as 'local'. I agree with her:-

Don’t close the city Victorian jails

The Chief Inspector suggests closing Victorian jails, but I think there’s a better option

The newly re-appointed chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor, has told the Guardian that he thinks 14 Victorian prisons should be closed as they are insanitary and not providing activities. You might think that I would agree with him, but I don’t.

He correctly identifies what is wrong with the prisons. Wandsworth is designated as having space for 1,000 men but is holding 600 over that. Even 1,000 is too many and is a number assessed by the prison service itself. Similarly the other prisons he identifies as being not fit for purpose are dilapidated, vermin infested and simply locking men up all day.

In the Guardian interview he identifies Pentonville, Liverpool, Leicester, Lewis, Exeter, Bristol and Leeds. There are other prisons built over a hundred years ago which have similarly been allowed to deteriorate. There are two problems with these prisons: gross overcrowding and crumbling fabric.

The Guardian article rightly points out that these prisons are holding twice, sometimes event three times the number of people they are meant to hold. Even the official capacity tends to allow for overcrowding. The daily number of prisoners often masks the churn of men going in and out, often on remand or short sentences. This means that the cells are not cleaned, they cannot get cleaning materials or decent clothing. When I visited prisons I often found men shuffling around in misshapen filthy jogging bottoms, with shoes that didn’t fit. They don’t get pyjamas so have to sleep and live in these clothes sometimes for weeks.

Sharing a cell not much bigger than a shop changing room with a stranger and an open toilet and a window that opens only a crack so there is no ventilation is hardly conducive to encouraging a healthy and clean lifestyle.

It’s not the Victorian building that is the seat of the problem. Remember that Oxford prison was turned into a very expensive luxury Malmaison hotel using the cells as rooms. A standard cell room costs £359 a night. The Victorians could build. The buildings often have good sight lines, natural light and ventilation. It’s the fact that far too many men are crammed in and the buildings have not been maintained so they are crumbling, rat infested and putrid.

The argument in favour of keeping the city based jails is that they are close to people’s families, to local services including housing and health, and can be supported by voluntary organisations. They also feel local to the men detained in them. They are all going to be released sooner or later and as we all know, the best hope of leading a good and useful life on release is someone to love you, somewhere to live and something to do. All this is more achievable in people reside in prisons local to their city homes.

Is the government investing in these prisons? No. It is spending billions building huge out of town jails that are dislocated from services and communities. Berwyn prison on the outskirts of Wrexham holds men mainly from Liverpool and Manchester. It was built to force the majority of men to share cells and without sufficient activity, education, health or work facilities for the 2,000 plus men.

We don’t need more prisons. We need fewer prisons. But if we are going to have prisons they should not be crowded, they should be clean and airy and healthy with education and work opportunities so that the men, and women, have something useful to do each day.

We should look to a prison population of perhaps 30,000 men who could be housed decently in city jails if there was investment in buildings and activities. Resources could be diverted to community resources following the principles of ‘justice reinvestment’.

Now that would be a policy for the next government.

Frances Crook