Cost of keeping Britain’s most dangerous cons behind bars is £77k a year – the same as staying at a posh London hotel
Inmates locked up at top-security Whitemoor jail cost taxpayer £212 per night, which amounts to a staggering £77k per year
THE cost of keeping Britain’s most dangerous cons behind bars is £77,600 a year.
Holding an inmate at top-security Whitemoor jail is £212 a night — the same as a Hilton hotel in London.
That is a 72 per cent rise on the last known cost of a category A lag — previously £45,000.
Whitemoor, in March, Cambs, holds the largest proportion of Muslim inmates of any British jail including Bluewater bomb plot ringleader Omar Khyam and gang murderer Lee Amos.
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Its cost — revealed in the National Offender Management Service’s annual report — dwarfs that of the country’s other seven high-security men’s prisons, largely due to heightened security measures.
The annual cost at HMP Bronzefield in Ashford, Middlesex — the only female category A facility — is £64,833, or £177 per night.
Glyn Travis, of the Prison Officers Association said: “These averages mask the real cost of the worst of the worst, who require far more resources.”
Explaining the higher costs, a Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: “Specialist units are in place to ensure the safety of staff and other prisoners.”