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'Desperate' prisons jam more in cells
Prison population reaches record level with 84,154 inmates - just under 1,000 below safe operating capacity

Jamie Doward, home affairs editor The Observer, Sunday 16 August 2009

The government has been accused of presiding over a "desperate" attempt to manage the prisons crisis by placing thousands more offenders in some of the oldest jails which are already operating at close to capacity.

As the prison population reached a record level this weekend – 84,154, just under 1,000 places below safe operating capacity – a leading thinktank on the treatment of offenders released figures showing that scores of jails were increasing their capacity to keep pace with the number of people being jailed.

The government has outlined plans to create three 1,500-place prisons as it prepares to increase capacity to 96,000 by 2014. But until new jails are built, the Prison Service has to create thousands more places in the existing system, sparking concerns that more overcrowding will exacerbate the smuggling of drugs and mobile phones.

The Howard League for Penal Reform says that at least nine prisons, including Long Lartin, Worcestershire, a high-security prison, and Leeds, a category B jail with one of the highest suicide rates, have each created more than 100 new places in the past year alone.

Some of the places have been created by "doubling up" – placing two prisoners in a cell normally used for one, a practice condemned by experts. Other jails have slotted in prefabricated wings. Rochester in Kent doubled its capacity and created 300 places by installing two five-storey prison blocks. Most prisons have been compelled to find at least 20 to 50 more places.

"While the government looks to sink more money into new prisons, it is also expanding existing jails at a startling rate," said the Howard League's assistant director, Andrew Neilson. "We know of nine prisons that have increased their capacity by over 100 places in the last year. This is a desperate attempt to avoid necessary sentencing reform by bolting on ever more jerry-built appendages to ageing accommodation."

Traditionally in summer, with courts sitting less frequently, the number of offenders sent to prison declines. But the surging population shows little sign of abating, leading to concerns about whether jails can keep pace. The pressure on the system has become so acute that the governor of Pentonville, a 170-year-old jail in London, has floated the idea of creating an extra 500 places, taking its capacity to 1,700 and making it one of the biggest institutions of its kind in the country.

"Pentonville already holds over 1,000 people," Neilson said. "It is a Victorian prison falling apart at the seams, yet somehow it is meant to take another 500 prisoners. This is desperate, end-of-the-road stuff, and the sooner someone gets a grip on reducing prison numbers the better."

The prison population has risen by almost 40% since Labour came to power in 1997. "We will always provide enough prison places for serious and persistent offenders," a spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said.

Monday 6th July 2009
The Citizen
Chorley MP Lindsay Hoyle is urging the government to do more to improve safety for prison officers.

Official figures show an increase in the number of assaults on prison officers Mr Hoyle has asked Justice Secretary Jack Straw to look at ways of improving safety for prison officers.

With a review of staffing levels within prisons due he wants to see that no further reduction in prison officer numbers takes place.

He said: "Prison officers do an extremely important job ensuring that order is maintained within prisons.

"In addition their skills stretch beyond just simply keeping the peace with officers actively engaged in offender management courses and rehabilitation programmes.

"I was disturbed to read the figures which show a 58 per cent increase in assaults on prison officers and this increase in violence is worrying both for the safety of officers in prison and the knock-on effect this may have on recruitment in the future."

"I want to see the government take action to support our prison officers and help them do their work. With a current review of staffing levels I am keen to ensure that we see no reduction in the number of prison officers as this will do nothing to improve safety."

PRISON STAFFING IN 2009
Concerns have been raised following recent incidents, absconds, escapes and for the safety and security, of our prisons as budget cuts impact on the level of staffing and ratio of prisoners to staff increase.
POA PRESS RELEASE (JUN 09)
A female prisoner managed to conceal herself at Holloway prison in London for 5 days as the Service assumed she had walked out of the prison dressed as a prison chaplain. Last week 3 prisoners serving life walked out of Hewell Grange near Birmingham.

Concerns have been raised over the allocation of prisoners to open prisons and staff shortages are high on the agenda for the POA as concerns continue to mount.

Colin Moses National Chairman of the POA said:

“The day to day staff shortfalls are a real concern to the safety and security of every prison and we call on the Government to address this issue as a matter of urgency.

“We believe that the Government could recruit around 3000 staff to ensure our prisons are fully staffed and capable of performing the all work asked of them, but they will not. The National Offender Management Service (NOMS), state they have around 900 people waiting to commence employment in the prison service, but recruitment is frozen at present and again you have to ask why?

“With the current unemployment and recession we can not understand why prisons are not being properly staffed and the public put at risk on a daily basis.

“I will be looking for an early meeting with the new Prisons Minister Marie Eagles and would hope that she addresses this issue as a matter of urgency.”

Brian Caton General Secretary of the POA said:

“The Service is operating on a shoe string and the goodwill of POA members and things have to change.

“It is wrong to see people claiming benefits when there is work available and we estimate that if all prisons were fully staffed to perform all the required work, around 3000 jobs would be created; this would save the tax payer around £5m a year in benefits alone and help kick start the economy.

“The POA have always campaigned for full staffing and when independent reviews identify shortfalls in the system, we would expect those in authority to act, not to drive down staffing to save money and put the public at risk.

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Gooch gang leaders Colin Joyce and Lee Amos ‘aged’ for police poster
From The Times
April 21, 2009
Police have taken the unusual step of publishing a poster showing two of Britain’s most feared gangsters as they will look when they are eventually released from prison as old men.

Colin Joyce, 29, the self-styled “general” of the Gooch gang, and his lieutenant Lee Amos, 32, were jailed for a minimum of 39 and 35 years respectively this month after a six-month trial.

They led a gang that ran a cocaine and heroin business and murdered potential rivals. For two decades the gang terrorised residents in the Moss Side area of Manchester and its surrounding suburbs. Joyce, left, is shown aged 68, bald, jowly and with grey whiskers; Amos has been transformed from a vigorous man to a pensioner

Greater Manchester Police — which hailed the jailing of 11 members of the gang as a breakthrough in the battle against gun crime — created a billboard campaign using the images of the gang leaders as old men, and no longer a potent threat.

Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable, revealed the poster yesterday beside a busy arterial road in south Manchester. Under the banner “Ageing Behind Bars”, it shows before and after images of Joyce and Amos.

Joyce, who cannot be released from jail before 2048, is shown at 68, as bald, jowly and rheumy-eyed with a greying moustache, beard and whiskers. Amos has been transformed from a vigorous man to a pensioner staring into the middle distance.

Published Date: 11 April 2009
MORE prison officers have arrived at Ashwell Prison and are getting changed into riot gear.
The officers arrived in minibuses in the past 45 minutes

A spokesman for the Prison Officers' Association said the disturbance was started by one inmate but soon others joined in - as many as 200 to 300.

He said they targeted the work area to get access to ladders, oil and tools and the medical area to access drugs.

Ashwell Prison riot

By Colin Fernandez         30th March 2009
Prisoner escapes by clinging on to bottom of security van
As the prison gates clanged shut behind him, arsonist Julien Chautard was facing seven years behind bars. But the 39-year-old criminal, who had been sentenced just a few hours earlier, was never to see the inside of his cell at Pentonville jail.

In a scene straight out of Hollywood, he managed to slip away from his guards and hide under the prison van that had brought him from court.

He then found a way to cling by his fingertips to the underside of the van and stay there as it drove out of the jail - leaving prison authorities to turn Pentonville upside down in a vain search for the escapee.

Chautard had been sentenced at Snaresbrook Crown Court in East London on Friday for arson reckless as to whether life was endangered and a further charge of arson in Hackney, North London.

As the Serco prison van arrived at Pentonville in North London at 7pm on the same day prison officers failed to spot him disappear from among a group of new arrivals.

Then, emulating Robert De Niro's psychopath character Max Cady who hangs on to the underbelly of a car in the remake of the thriller Cape Fear, he is thought to have crawled under the security van and stayed there as it left the jail.

His escape went undetected for seven hours as prison officers searched the jail until 2am.

Initially, it appeared Chautard had vanished into thin air. It was only when CCTV footage was checked seven hours later that officers noticed a shadow under the van that had not been there before.

MARTIN WILLIAMS       March 30 2009
The Scottish Government is facing a revolt from prison officers over plans to introduce Britain's first prison needle exchange scheme in Scotland.
The move has been branded "nonsensical" by Scottish Prison Officers' Association (SPOA) leaders, coming after the government has stressed its "zero tolerance" of drugs in prison.

Derek Turner, assistant secretary of the SPOA, said prison officers' feelings were running so high over the "ludicrous" and "nonsensical" proposal that many have said they would walk out if it was brought in.

The government said it recognised there were concerns among prison officers and said it hoped "that a way forward can be found to meet their concerns while ensuring delivery of the planned pilot".

The row comes as new figures show the number of substance seizures in Scotland's prisons in the past three months was double that for the whole of last year.

Information received by The Herald shows there were 1370 drug seizures in Scottish jails between January 1 and mid-March this year, about 18 a day. There were just 715 in the whole of 2008.

Union leaders have been meeting Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill in recent weeks to try to halt the proposal, expected to be implemented imminently, which they say will gravely compromise the safety of prison officers and make a mockery of the government's and the Scottish Prison Service's (SPS) aim of stopping drugs getting into jails in Scotland.

They are bitterly disappointed that, despite the meetings, the minister is keen to go ahead with the plan. It is expected it will start as a pilot at HM Prison Aberdeen, which has the worst record for drug seizures in Scotland.

The prison officers' hard line will bring them into conflict with the Scottish Government's national Hepatitis C Action Plan, a policy aimed at tackling an epidemic of the blood-borne virus, especially among injecting drug users, including those in prison.

SPS figures on drug misuse in Scottish prisons in 2008 show that 80% of prisoners surveyed who admitted injecting drugs in the previous month had shared needles, considered a major health risk. But only 3% of prisoners admitted to injecting drugs in prison.

Needle exchanges in prison have been considered at Westminster, but the idea has not taken off due to concerns over prison security.

The Scottish Government has told the SPOA that evidence from prisons elsewhere in Europe has shown there is no additional risk to prison officers from needle exchanges, and that it is believed to cut the transmission of disease and stabilise drug use.

At least 99% of health authorities operate needle exchange programmes in the community, which have been proven to reduce the spread of blood-borne viruses among injecting addicts.

However, officers say prison must be seen as a different case. They insist the proposal would be seen as encouraging drugs, and that needles would inevitably be used as weapons against officers.

Top award for prison officer

Monday, March 30, 2009

This is South Devon
PRISON officer Christine Lewis has been to Buckingham Palace to receive a prestigious award for her 'exceptional dedication and skills' in her work at Channings Wood prison near Newton Abbot.

The Princess Royal presented the award for education and skills training, one of the top awards made to prison officers in Britain.

The citation accompanying the award said Christine had, largely in her own time, created two national directories of offending behaviour programmes and work skills courses — now widely used across England and Wales.

The Butler Trust Keith Bromley award is one of the most sought-after awards for people working with offenders in the UK.

Channings Wood governor Jeanine Hendrick says the entire prison staff is proud of Christine's achievement.

Christine has been at Channings Wood for more than 10 years, the last six as a prison officer.

Low staff levels at prison put public at risk claims
Feb 22 2009 by Ben Goldby, Sunday Mercury

PUBLIC safety could be put at risk due to plans to restructure jobs at a Midland jail, senior guards have claimed.

Prison officers at HMP Swinfen Hall, say staffing levels are already “dangerously low” and plans to restructure jobs will make the situation worse.

Warders at the Young Offenders Institute and Category C men’s prison, near Lichfield, Staffordshire, say they are regularly attacked by inmates.

And they have raised fears that violence in more than one block of the jail could cause a riot that officers wouldn’t be able to control.

Prisons Minister David Hanson has denied the planned restructure will compromise prison security or safety.

One senior guard told the Sunday Mercury: “The staffing levels are not what they should be and in some areas they are not safe.

“The cuts that are being made will put us down to a staff level of at least 20 prisoners to just one officer. That’s disgusting and dangerous.”

Swinfen Hall houses around 620 dangerous lags, including more than 100 adult prisoners. Learco Chindamo, the crazed teenage knife man who murdered London headmaster Philip Lawrence in 1995, was held at the high security jail until his release in 2006.

“We’re trying to stop violence and bullying and make sure the public are safe,” the source added.

“They’re cutting officers left, right and centre and if staffing levels drop even a little from where they are now no-one will be safe, not the staff, not the prisoners and not the public.

“It’s already hectic at Swinfen Hall, especially when it starts kicking off.

“If trouble was to start in more than one wing, we wouldn’t be able to cope. There have been attacks on guards. You never know what to expect when you open those doors.

“We’ve had officers punched in the face, kicked in the head, and beaten up as they try to stop yard fights. We’ve got to have more guards, not less, otherwise there will be more trouble and more risk to those on the front line.”

A bitter dispute has broken out between the warders’ union, the Prison Officers’ Association (POA), and the Ministry of Justice over plans to overhaul working practices in jails, which guards fear will lead to what they call “de-skilling and downgrading”.

Ray Peaty, head of Swinfen’s branch of the POA, believes Government plans to offer low-ranking staff more responsibility and cut budgets for hiring new guards are causing problems.

“The Prison Service is making out like we’re having massive pay rises, but that simply isn’t true,” he said.

“They’re trying to give a one-off bribe payment and completely change our conditions. We just want fair pay for a fair day’s work. This isn’t about pay – it’s about safety for our members and the inmates.

“The Government has spent £17 million of taxpayers’ money preparing this scheme, which isn’t going to work and hasn’t been drawn up in consultation with the POA. The public needs to know about this because it is a very serious situation.”

Prisons Minister David Hanson said: “The Government intends to introduce a programme of Workforce Modernisation to both reform and modernise the Prison Service, which includes an amended pay and grading structure for prison officers and governors. A 4.75 per cent consolidated pay increase over three years is an attractive deal at a time of economic uncertainty.

“We’re committed to ensuring the safety of the public, staff and prisoners and we are confident that the proposals outlined will not jeopardise prison security or safety.”

ben.goldby@sundaymercury.net

RIOTING cons trashed Scotland's newest prison last night.

Convicts riot in luxury Addiewell Prison eight weeks after it opens

Feb 10 2009 By Keith McLeod
Up to 48 inmates went on the rampage at state-of-the-art Addiewell Prison and barricaded security doors with pool tables.

The luxurious £18million HMP Addiewell, dubbed "The Addison" by prisoners after the Radisson hotel chain, opened just eight weeks ago.

Police and fire crews were called to the privately run jail, near West Calder, Midlothian, just after 8pm while members of the public were still visiting.

Ambulances were also called to the scene as a precaution.

Violence flared when prisoners took control of a hall in one wing of the jail, sparking a major lock-down.

Witnesses said they saw drainpipes being torn from walls and cons threw up barricades using pool tables and furniture.

Police set up roadblocks in a perimeter of one mile from the prison but here was no suggestion of any escapes and all prison officers were accounted for.

One man who was visiting a friend in jail said: "It was panic stations at first.

"They didn't know what to do with the prisoners or visitors.

"The prisoner I was visiting was marched out, brought back and then marched out again."

He added: "We had to wait ages until they felt it was safe enough to let us out.

"There were police and fire engines everywhere. I saw people in riot gear entering the prison."

Another visitor said: "They were damaging the inside of the prison.

"There was a report of fires being lit but I didn't see this, though there was a smell of smoke."

A Scottish Prison Service spokesman said: "We can confirm that a group of prisoners is in a hall in one of the wings.

"My information is it is in the tens, rather than hundreds.

"The fire service, police and ambulance have responded as part of an automatic protocol for dealing with these types of situations."

A police spokesman confirmed there were officers on the scene but said the mattr was being dealt with by the SPS.

Addiewell houses 700 prisoners, some lifers, including killers and rapists.

A Scottish Prison Service spokeswoman said later it was unclear what sparked the disturbance but an investigation was now under way.

She rejected reports inmates became angry after they were not given food for some time.

Trouble flared at around 8pm in Douglas Wing, a residential hall at the jail, she said. The situation was brought under control by about 11pm.

A small number of prisoners have now been placed in a segregation block.

A Kalyx spokesman later said the disturbance was triggered by one inmate over a "personal matter".

The majority of prisoners were not involved, he said.

The spokesman also rejected the claim there was an issue regarding the provision of meals in the prison.

"On the evening of Monday, February9 , one prisoner instigated a disturbance over a personal matter in one wing of HMP Addiewell," the spokesman said.

"The correct procedures were followed to ensure the safety of staff and other prisoners and the main perpetrators were removed from the wing and isolated.

"There were no injuries to staff or prisoners and there has been minimal damage to the wing."

Addiewell has already gained a reputation for being a soft option by cons who have en-suite bathrooms and showers and flat-screen TVs.

The prison is run by the private firm Kalyx. It has 12 wings and entry is controlled by kiosks which have finger scan recognition technology. There were claims that cons pretended to come from Lanarkshire or West Lothian so they would be transferred to Addiewell.

Winson Green prison officer protest
Feb 7 2009 by Mark Cowan, Birmingham Mail
MORE than 150 prison officers gathered on the steps of Birmingham’s Winson Green jail for a public meeting in protest at a “derisory” pay offer.

Officers have been offered a 4.75 per cent rise over three years but with nothing extra on salaries this year, coupled with moves to modernise.

Union officials described the offer as an “illusion of a deal and an illusion of a pay award” offered under threat of privatisation if rejected.

The Prison Officers’ Association will hold a ten-day ballot from Sunday.

Scores of workers yesterday gathered outside Birmingham prison to hear calls for them to reject the offer, which they fear will de-skill and de-professionalise their job by introducing lower paid staff.

The Association’s Birmingham branch chairman Brian Clarke said: “It’s cheaper uniform and a cheaper option – but it is definitely not a safer one. We do not want to see our health and safety compromised and not see the job de-skilled.

“The Prison Service has threatened market testing, or privatisation if we reject this deal. That is a direct threat to our jobs.”

Mr Clarke said less than half of officers were being offered a £1,700 one-off payment he branded a “bribe”, but claimed the deal would drive down pay, pensions and standards.

POA general secretary, Brian Caton told members the offer was unacceptable, “not because of money” but because of the long term effect on the profession.

“Prison officers stand nose to nose with all kinds of dangerous people throughout their lives. If they think they can push these people around they will soon realise they can’t,” he added.