"Levels of violence are up,
staff numbers are down and complaints about overcrowding are widespread. Why are
prisons in England and Wales under pressure?
In 2015, in his last annual report as Chief Inspector of Prisons in
England, Nick Hardwick said jails were in their worst state for a
decade.
"Even Liz Truss, who as justice secretary has overall responsibility for
prisons, acknowledges that they're "not working" and are under "serious and
sustained pressure".
There have always been problems. For many years, internal reports painted a
picture of daily outbreaks of violence, cell fires and self-harm across the
prisons estate.
As
thousands of prison staff departed, a seemingly intractable drugs problem
began to arrive in jails - "legal highs", also known as New Psychoactive
Substances. Sold under names such as Spice and Black Mamba, by 2013 the
synthetic cannabis compounds had become a major problem. In contrast,
Scottish prisons have had no record of any seizures of the drug.
The
health dangers, bizarre behaviour and violence associated with New
Psychoactive Substances led to them being banned in the UK last year. In
prisons, they have proved to be an unpredictable, and occasionally lethal,
alternative to cannabis. Between June 2013 and April 2016, the Prisons and
Probation Ombudsman identified 64 deaths in jail where the prisoner was
known or strongly suspected to have used or possessed New Psychoactive
Substances before they died.
Despite the dangers, these synthetic drugs are popular because they are hard
to detect using conventional drug testing methods and they provide a
diversion to the boredom and frustration of prison life. The drugs are a
source of income for criminal gangs whose illicit use of phones and drones,
combined with the help of a number of corrupt staff, has helped the trade
thrive behind bars."
"This overview of Canada’s correctional system leaves us with a
disturbing picture. We have focused primarily on provincial correctional
facilities, but indications are that the situation is just as bad in
territorial centres.
Without a doubt, the majority of provincial correctional facilities in this
country are either at capacity or overcrowded. We have seen reports of
institutions operating at nearly 200 per cent capacity, twice as many
inmates as the facility was built to hold.
However, as we have also seen, figures can be deceiving,
and may
seriously underestimate the situation. The stated capacity of some
institutions has been altered to reflect the normalization of
double-bunking, and renovations made to older facilities may have created
more room, but not necessarily adequate facilities. The new capacity figures
may also reflect the fact that cell sizes are smaller and common areas have
been reduced.
With overcrowding there appears to be an increase in violence and serious
incidents, from inmate-on-inmate violence to incidences between inmates and
correctional officers. While most of the reports we have cited are careful
not to proclaim a direct causal relationship between overcrowding and
violence, they all see the two as having some connection."