Despite the censorship, reports emerge of security collapse in prisons

By Ian Dunt Wednesday, 12 November 2014 8:49 AM Prison crisis: Can jails keep control without enough staff?

The most effective tool the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has for covering up the prison crisis is censorship. Prisoners can't talk, former prisoners can't talk, guards can't talk. The only reliable information published is from the chief inspector of prisons and the independent monitoring boards, who Chris Grayling can't shut up.

That information is a snap shot of a system in chaos, falling apart under the combined weight of funding cuts, staff shortages and Grayling's "right-wing solutions" to reoffending.

Today the report came in from an unannounced inspection of Elmley prison on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. It is dangerously overcrowded and understaffed. There has been one major disturbance a month for each of the last 11 consecutive months, with prisoners refusing to go back to their cells. This compares to zero disturbances the year before. The offender management unit is "overwhelmed".

Almost 200 of the men there spend 23 hours a day in their cells. Fights and assault are up 60% in the last year. Vulnerable prisoners are being abused without staff intervention. Five people have committed suicide in the last two years.

Rehabilitation has completely ground to a halt. Of the cases looked at by probation inspectors, not one showed meaningful work being done to address the offending behaviour of the prisoner.

As we've seen before, drug use is high and mandatory drug tests are counter-productive. These tests push people away from drugs like cannabis, which statistically are not dangerous, and towards new substances like spice and black mamba, which dont show up on the test. These are much more unpredictable, as the inmates' nickname for ambulances 'mambulances' testifies. The mandatory drug tests show 7.2% positivity, but 40% of prisoners told inspectors it was easy to get drugs. Take a guess which one of those figures is more indicative of the truth.

In Brixton prison, the independent monitoring board report also noted "unacceptably high" levels of drug use, citing positive test results and anecdotal evidence from prisoners.

Staffing levels are so low they "wholly ignore the requirements of running a prison effectively, safely and humanely".

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Despite the censorship, reports emerge of security collapse in prisons