Wednesday, November 12, 2014 A shocking inspection report detailing a 60% rise in violence and 11 “mini-riots” in 11 months at an ordinary local prison in Kent has revealed the depths of the prisons crisis facing the justice secretary, Chris Grayling, Extra temporary staff were immediately drafted into Elmley jail on the Isle of Sheppey after a report by Nick Hardwick, the chief inspector of prisons, revealed that urgent action was needed to stabilise the prison. The “very serious” situation at Elmley comes after Grayling told MPs on Monday that prison staff had monitored – and listened in to some – confidential phone calls between prisoners and at least 32 sitting MPs between 2006 and 2012. The justice secretary apologised to the Commons for the routine recording of confidential phone calls, which included “in a handful of cases” calls between inmates and their lawyers. Grayling has asked Hardwick to investigate the extent of the breach of confidentiality involved. The chief inspector’s report, published on Wednesday, says that Elmley, which has 1,252 men packed into cells meant for 985, is, like many other jails in the south-east of England, struggling to deal with the pressures created by large-scale staff shortages. There have been five suicides at the jail in the past two years. “This inspection revealed very serious concerns. At the heart of the prison’s problems was a very restricted and unpredictable regime,” says Hardwick. “Association, exercise and domestic periods were cancelled at short notice every day. We witnessed many examples of prisoners being turned away from education and work because prison officers were not available for supervision. About 15% of the population, or almost 200 men, were unemployed and they routinely spent 23 hours a day locked in their cells.” The inspection in June found that 200 prisoners were being held three to a cell designed for two, while 416 were doubled up in single cells. While levels of violence at the jail were comparable to those at similar prisons, they were deteriorating quickly: “The overall number of fights and assaults had increased by 60% over the past year and the trend was upwards,” Hardwick reports. “Over the previous 11 months there had been 11 acts of concerted indiscipline when prisoners had refused to return to their cells. There had been none in the 12 months before that.” Hardwick says that while the inspection team was inside the jail, plans were being made to introduce a much more restricted regime the following week until temporary staff could arrive to relieve the pressure. Michael Spurr, chief executive officer of the National Offender Management Service, said that 23 temporary officers were deployed to Elmley the week after the inspection enabling a fuller regime to be introduced: “Permanent recruitment is under way and Elmley will continue to receive support from other prisons until vacancies are filled to ensure that the prison can continue to operate properly and safely at all times.” However, prison reformers pointed to two other reports, on Brixton and Bristol prisons, published by the independent monitoring boards on Wednesday that confirm that such staff shortages are endemic across the south of England. Bristol is described as being at “bursting point” while at Brixton the staffing levels “ignore the needs of running the prison safely and humanely”. The chief inspector said he would start work immediately on the investigation requested by Grayling into the scale of monitoring of prisoner’s confidential phone calls to their MPs and in a small number of cases to their lawyers. At least one call to the office of the Liberal Democrat justice minister, Simon Hughes, was monitored as well as five or six to the office of Jack Straw when he was justice secretary. Grayling apologised to the Commons for “any interception of communications between a prisoner and their constituency MP” but insisted that the “unacceptable” monitoring had been accidental rather than any intentional strategy by the prison service to listen in to calls.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 01:04:05 +0000
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