While we were inspecting HMP Elmley on the Isle of Sheppey, a commotion broke out on one of the wings. \u2018What\u2019s up?\u2019 one of my team asked the nearest prison officer. \u2018Bloke who\u2019s getting out tomorrow has just been told he\u2019s being shipped to Rochester jail.\u2019 The man was manhandled towards a prison van. \u2018If I was him, I\u2019d kick off too,\u2019 the officer added quietly.<\/p>\n
\nReducing the prison population will do nothing to stem the flow of drugs pouring into every jail in the country<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
That week things were so desperate in the south of England that the prisoner was being forced to spend one night in a jail 20 miles away so that new arrivals could be squeezed in that afternoon. Jails were 99 per cent full and governors were under instructions to make every possible place available.<\/p>\n
This is the context in which the former justice secretary David Gauke publishes his report on sentencing this week. Ministers hope he will find a way to reduce the prison population from current historic highs. That would give the most overcrowded jails, such as Elmley, Leeds and Bristol, breathing space to deal with the other problems they face.<\/p>\n
Recently published statistics showed a 13 per cent increase in assaults on staff and seven murders in the past year. Self-harm among prisoners has reached a new high \u2013 particularly in women\u2019s prisons. Ever-increasing levels of violence and recent high-profile assaults by notable prisoners at Frankland and Belmarsh have led ministers to announce that some prison officers will soon be issued with Tasers.<\/p>\n
In the three public-sector young offender institutions, consistently the most violent prisons in the country, the use of pepper spray on children has been authorised. The government has also commissioned a review into the use of body armour following pressure from the Prison Officers\u2019 Association.<\/p>\n
At HM Inspectorate of Prisons, we continue to report that many prisoners are locked in their cells for up to 22 hours a day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While we were inspecting HMP Elmley on the Isle of Sheppey, a commotion broke out on one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,188,393,4884,7898,1144,14618,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-130020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-justice","15":"tag-northern-ireland","16":"tag-prisons","17":"tag-scotland","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114567162461679865","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}