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UK: Private prison where 40% of prisoners are on drugs
Times on line
Wednesday 21 Dec 2005 A PRIVATELY run jail is out of control, with high levels of assaults and a culture on the wings of drug abuse, according to a highly critical report published today. Prison officers were covered with a bucket of excrement by inmates at Forest Bank jail as inspectors toured the building. The incident known in prison slang as “potting” was the latest in a number of similar attacks on prison staff. Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, criticised the culture at the jail which was “steeped in serious drug abuse”. In one month alone, more than 2kg of cannabis, 60g of heroin and 4.6g of cocaine were found at the jail, run by United Kingdom Detention Services. Ms Owers was so alarmed by the prison in Salford, Greater Manchester, that she immediately alerted senior Prison Service officials to the extent of the failings. “There had been a significant deterioration in safety so that urgent management attention and remedial action was required to rebuild staff confidence and properly regain control of the prison,” the inspection report said. A surprise inspection in July at the jail, run by UKDS, a subsidiary of Sodexho Alliance which runs three prisons, found routine intimidation of staff, prisoner assaults on other prisoners running at 25 a month and staff turnover of 25 per cent a year. There had been 2,500 prisoner discipline hearings in six months and 40 per cent of compulsory drug tests were positive. Ms Owers said: “There were a series of assaults against staff, including one unsavoury incident when a bucket of excrement was thrown into an office and over two staff who were there, while we were at the prison. This was by no means the first such ‘potting’ incident in the prison’s recent history. We were told there were two or three others in the previous couple of months.” The report depicts a prison where drugs are rife and that a high level of staff turnover meant custody officers were unable to tackle problems. “We were concerned that a culture of tolerance of, and acquiescence with, inappropriate behaviour was becoming establised at Forest Bank and this put prisoners and staff at risk,” the report on the 1,013-inmate category B jail said. More than 130 prisoners were on closed visits during which they could not touch their visitors because it was suspected drugs were being smuggled into the jail. Ms Owers said it was the highest number of closed visits inspectors had found in any of the 140 jails in England and Wales. Despite efforts to stop drugs entering the jail, the report found that large amounts were being smuggled in. Ms Owers said the prison was clean and well maintained and that suicide and self-harm procedures were sound. It is the second report in less than six months in which Ms Owers has found serious problems of control at a privately run jail. In July she found that staff at Rye Hill jail near Rugby had little confidence in controlling prisoners and the premises were “almost out of control”. Staff turnover at the prison, operated by GSL, formerly part of the Group 4, was running at 40 per cent a year. Private sector involvement in the prison system has helped to spur the public sector to improve its performance and introduced innovation into the jail system. But staff turnover at private jails is higher than State-run jails — reflecting lower pay for officers compared with those in State prisons. It is also difficult to get information about what goes on in private jails with “commercial confidentiality” used as a reason not to disclose details. One prison watchdog said: “The private sector do not like anyone knowing too much about what goes on in their prisons. If they could get away with giving out no information at all, they would.” A company spokesman accepted that, at the time of the inspection, staff were facing “an increasingly confrontational prison population willing to challenge staff”. But action implemented by the company had resulted in a reduction in incidents, assaults and positive drug testing figures, he said. Ivor Woods, director of Forest Bank, said: “We recognise that we still have work to do and I am committed to ensuring that the standards we set for ourselves are maintained.” http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1948227,00.html
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