New prison ‘SWAT’ teams set up to crush the gangs behind drug-fuelled violence in Britain’s jails
Crack squads of specialist trained prison officers will be rolled out across 100 jails to root out drugs, mobiles and contraband, Justice Secretary David Gauke announced
NEW prison ‘SWAT’ teams are being set up to crush the gangs behind drug-fuelled violence in Britain’s jails.
Justice Secretary David Gauke yesterday announced crack squads of specialist trained prison officers will be rolled out across 100 jails to root out drugs, mobiles and contraband.
The dedicated search teams will use “detection rods” to find hidden mobiles as well as dogs and fibre-optic cameras to discover drug stashes.
They’ll be charged with targeting lags driving the explosion in serious assaults behind bars with the trade in psychoactive substances such as ‘Spice’.
So far they’ve been deployed in eight high security prisons.
The teams will now be rolled out to 100 lower category jails across the country.
MoJ officials claim lags are hollowing out table and chair legs to hide their stash. They’re also carving holes into wooden door frames or putting drugs in bags in toilet u-bends that lags in neighbouring cells can reach.
Writing for the Sun, Mr Gauke said the move was a “critical step forward” in the war on prison violence.
He said: “If we are to successfully to bring down the levels of violence that have plagued our prisons in recent times, we must win the battle against organised crime behind bars.”
Shock figures this summer showed a near 25 per cent increase in drug finds over the past year. Separately one in five lags tested positive for drugs.
At the same time, assaults have soared to record levels.
The MoJ last month said there were an incredible 9,485 attacks on guards in the past year – up by 27 per cent.
The latest crackdown is part of the MoJ’s £70 million plan to take on gangs and organised crime in jails. Prison Minister Rory Stewart has already introduced airport style scanners in 10 of the most notorious jails in the country.
David Gauke, Justice Secretary, writes
“If we are to successfully bring down the levels of violence that have plagued our prisons in recent times, we must win the battle against organised crime behind bars.
Make no mistake, the often sophisticated networks that are largely responsible for bringing drugs, mobile phones and other contraband into jails are the drivers of this violence. Using threat, debt and physical intimidation as their currency, these gangs are the virus that can all too easily infect even the best prisons if left unchecked.
Today I am announcing our latest initiative to tackle this scourge. The process has already begun to recruit more than 100 prison officers into the specialist teams who will be taking the fight to these gangs.
Using technology – such as mobile phone detectors – intelligence and more traditional means, like search dog units, these teams are experts at finding contraband, disrupting criminal activity and gathering the evidence to hold those responsible to account. Previously operating in only our most high-security prisons, these teams will now be able to cover all our closed prisons – a huge step forward for the Prisons Service.
I have said many times that I want our prisons to be places of hope and rehabilitation. If we are serious about protecting victims and reducing reoffending, this has to be the case.
It’s no good simply warehousing prisoners for a few weeks, months or years, then setting them free, unreformed, to go out and offend again. We know that when prisoners can have their eyes opened to a better, crime-free life of stable work, housing and family, they are far less likely to cause more harm to the public.
But this can only happen where we have prisons that are calm, decent and capable of rehabilitating offenders. We have recruited more than 4,000 extra prison officers since October 2016 and now have the staff in place to achieve this.
I am optimistic that the search teams I have announced today will help us fight back against the criminal gangs operating in our prisons. That is a critical step forward in the multi-front war on prison violence.
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Mr Gauke yesterday said: “We continue to tackle criminality in prison and today’s announcement of new dedicated search teams will take the fight to gangs who deal drugs in prison and cause violence.
“This is part of our multi-million security strategy to stop drugs getting in, find the drugs that do get in and disrupt the trade altogether.”
He added: “Measures like this, together with our unrelenting focus on rehabilitation, will help ensure our prisons are places where offenders can turn their backs on crime and ultimately prevent future victims.”
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