Eradicating drugs from prisons may be unrealistic, but it should be the goal
The figures we report today are truly shocking – or they would be, were it not for the pervasive sense of resignation about everything that pertains to our prisons. The ubiquity of drugs then risks being seen as just one aspect of a disastrously failing system. It is more than that. It is at the root of many other prison problems.
Recorded at 21,145, annual drug seizures by prison officers in the year to March 2024 were more than 35 per cent up on the previous year, and nudging the record of 21,574 set four years before. Given the likelihood of undetected, or unchecked, possession, the figure for actual seizures is likely to understate the problem. In what comes perilously close to a concession of defeat, the Independent Monitoring Boards of prisons in the UK describe the movement of drugs into these institutions as 'a seemingly unstoppable flow'.
There was a time when prison was seen as an opportunity to treat those with a drug habit. Success may have been limited, but it seems an even less realistic objective today. In our report, Mike Trace, head of a charity providing drug treatment in prisons and former drugs 'Czar' in the Blair government, says the number of treatment programmes in prison, including drug-free wings, has been slashed from 110 in 2013 to just 15 now. It is by no means unheard of for offenders who entered prison clean to emerge from their sentence with a dependency likely to land them back behind bars.
No one, of course, would argue that freeing prisons from the scourge of drugs is simple. If it were, it would have been done long before now. The extent to which the problem has grown in recent years reflects a host of factors, from cuts to prison staffing under the austerity policies of previous governments – which resulted in the loss of many more experienced staff – to technological developments, such as miniature mobile phones and drones that allow inmates to circumvent more traditional prison security. Drones also facilitate deliveries of drugs in far greater quantities than would be possible via visitors or corrupt employees, and reduce the effectiveness of recently introduced X-ray scanners.
A further complication is the wider variety of illicit drugs in circulation, some being hard to identify, which can have more harmful effects than before. The consequence is an increase, both in emergency hospital admissions and in violence among inmates and towards staff. Reprisals for drug-related debts have become a particular problem – and these are debts, it should be stressed, that have been incurred in prison. In the past, it was sometimes argued that drug-taking was tolerated in some prisons because it could calm down otherwise under-occupied and frustrated inmates. That argument is less tenable now.
All these changes are well known to the prison authorities and those with monitoring and policy responsibilities. In our report, His Majesty's chief inspector of prisons, Charlie Taylor, is quoted as saying that drugs are the biggest challenge currently facing many prisons, and that it is 'not acceptable that these levels of criminality are going on, unchecked'. He is right. It is not acceptable. But where is any real sense of urgency and direction to get to grips with such a pernicious and growing problem?
The government has embarked on what it bills as the biggest overhaul of the prison system in decades. In the short term, it is addressing prison overcrowding through an emergency programme of early releases. It has a longer-term schedule for building new prisons and welcomes talk about a greater focus on work and rehabilitation. So far, so modestly good.
But there is a lot of catching up to do, too – starting, perhaps, with better training, pay and status for prison staff. And it is hard not to detect a note of complacency in the response of the Justice Ministry to The Independent 's findings, which blamed past governments for the current situation, while asserting a 'zero-tolerance approach to drugs' and 'a clear impact' from the use of body scanners and drone no-fly zones.
We are, though, a year into the new government, and it is hard to detect that tolerance for drugs in prison is any closer to zero than it was before, while the impact of scanners and no-fly zones seems a lot less clear than the Justice Ministry insists. Eradicating drugs from prison altogether may be unrealistic, but it should be the ambition, and it needs to be pursued with a lot more urgency and application than has been in evidence so far.
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Times
31 minutes ago
- Times
Behind closed doors: what I saw as a nurse on a psychiatric ward
'My God, I hope I never get mentally ill,' says a doctor in Fragile Minds, an account of life on psychiatric wards in Britain. You can only agree with her. The book — by Bella Jackson, a trainee mental health nurse so shocked by what she witnessed that she left the profession — reads like a cross between One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Nineteen Eighty-Four. But as she says when we meet, 'This is now.' A rape victim is slapped with a diagnosis of personality disorder (PD) and called 'attention-seeking'. Her request to be assessed by a female is refused as she's 'manipulative'. A man dares to tell the consultant his medication is causing chest pain. He's threatened with 'seclusion''. He pleads, in tears, but is made to feel like nothing, bullied into meekly submitting. As he was as a child, you imagine. 'It's re-traumatising,' Jackson says. Jackson — now 41, a therapist in private practice and mental health mentor, in London — had worked in social care and in prisons for five years when she began training as a psychiatric nurse on NHS acute mental health wards and centres in the south of England 'within the last ten years', she says, vague to preserve confidentiality. She was stunned by the 'dissociation' of staff. She wanted to believe the doctors knew best, but instinctively felt something was 'very wrong'. Her university tutor agreed there was 'bad practice', but not enough for anyone to do anything. 'There are pockets of good care,' he told her, 'but there is a lot of this.' She thought: 'Can't we complain?' She's taken aside, told not to ask so many questions. 'I want people to see what's happening behind these closed doors,' she says now, so they can 'protect themselves and their loved ones, if they are involved in mental health services'. So they know what questions to ask. Too often, 'We assume the answers we are being given are the correct ones.' She says: 'You need to be curious. When it comes to mental health, the expert on us is us.' This affects us all. It's alarmingly easy for anyone to be locked away. 'There wasn't consistency — of diagnosis, of sectioning,' Jackson says. 'It was so bizarre to see this incredibly important decision-making be so haphazard.' She witnesses a middle-class student brought into A&E. A spiteful-sounding nurse judges her 'bipolar' and calls a psychiatrist who declares, 'She's totally psychotic.' Jackson says: 'Hasn't she just smoked a load of spice?' A clinician can argue that drug-taking has 'activated' an underlying illness. People aren't believed. The shrink says: 'She thinks she's a famous singer.' Jackson looks up the girl on her phone — she's a folk singer. Only her family turning up, refusing antipsychotics — and the lack of an available bed — avoid her being admitted to an acute psychiatric ward. • Read more expert advice on healthy living, fitness and wellbeing Once someone's in the system, labelled with, for example, schizophrenia, PD (often 'weaponised') or delusional disorder, anything they say can be paranoia. Racism features, a lot. An African woman insists she's been sectioned because her kids want her house. Crazy. But it turns out she's sane enough to get a diplomat from her country of origin to order her release. Another inpatient, in his fifties, characterised as sharp, witty — 'I understand you, I just don't agree with you,' he tells a patronising nurse — appears to have autism. His family's request for an assessment is refused as it's 'too late'. Jackson is told 'they don't want the stigma of mental illness''. She saw little understanding of neurodiversity, and cites research that finds misdiagnosis is common. Yet, if a doctor says, ''Oh no, it's not that,' how often do we push back?' Why couldn't his family get him out? 'The legalities around sectioning would mean that it was very difficult.' On a section, you're deemed unsafe to be outside. 'You'd have to go through a tribunal. Some people did really fight to get their family members out, but a lot of people didn't.' ('How do I argue with a doctor who says my relative is unwell?') Characters are composites to protect identities, but it all happened, 'all these things were said to me,' Jackson says. She carried around a tatty notebook, 'just writing everything down, because I could not believe what was happening'. Patients' treatment by staff is frequently callous. 'Some people have good experiences,' Jackson stresses — but Fragile Minds focuses on the worst. The mentally unwell are often traumatised, yet there's no attempt to understand the context for their behaviour. When people go into services, 'they really are hopeful for compassion. It's devastating when they don't get it,' she says. 'It makes me so angry. It can really destroy us.' Most are 'boxed into a diagnosis' and medicated, often oversedated. Jackson and another decent nurse question a young man being given four daily doses of lorazepam — a benzodiazepine — as he can barely stand. They're ignored until he nearly drowns shaving — collapsing unconscious face-down in his sink. 'These medications do help a lot of people,' Jackson says. But many have severe side-effects, and also they're used 'punitively'. She saw medication used 'as a restraint on wards, to calm people down, to shut them up, put them to sleep. It's used by force, it's used through coercion — very different to someone choosing, and saying, 'This helps me.'' • Our new health crisis — we're diagnosing too much, too early One nurse says: 'I'm all about a good injection.' To Jackson's horror that a woman prescribed the antipsychotic clozapine has undergone a drastic mental and physical deterioration on the drug, her doctor responds Orwellian-style: 'I think she's got better.' Soon after, the patient dies. Jackson hopes it doesn't come across 'that the staff are demonised'. She says they're exhausted, overworked, and don't receive adequate psychological training or support to withstand working with distressed, unwell people and remain empathic. 'You needed a shield, almost, an absence of feeling. And what that created then was very much an 'us and them'.' But it wasn't just no empathy — your book describes cruelty, I point out. 'I think there was some cruelty,' she says slowly. 'You saw prejudice and bias, and cruelty.' She suspects much of it comes from emotional burnout, 'and being asked to do things that feel morally dubious — if they're asked to restrain someone and inject them against their will, what does that do to a person?' You can't then be all chatty and empathic with that patient. It's upsetting to dig deeper. Numbing yourself is 'survival mode'. So, 'You almost become this jailor.' Plus, psychiatry is hierarchical. 'There's a cruelty that comes from unchecked power. It was easy to forget that it was a person in front of you.' Ideally — 'and these things are being fought for, in the wings' — there'd be more access to psychological therapy, family therapy, arts therapy and peer-to-peer support. We need to help people to find meaning in their lives, acquire skills, agency and self-esteem, she says. 'These are all parts of us that we need to rebuild once we break down, and we can't do that stuck in a ward where there's a TV screwed to the floor and some non-throwable furniture and there's nothing else to do other than take your drugs and sit still.' And yet, she stresses, it's complex. 'The need to think about what someone's been through, and emotional connection, empathy, is so important in recovery.' But crucially, 'There's all sorts of risk with mental illness and mental distress,' so as a psychiatrist you're assessing risk: 'Is this person going to harm themselves? Harm others?' • Six-day waits and security guards: the mental health crisis crippling A&E A key question. A recent NHS survey found one in five people in Britain have a mental health condition and in 16 to 24-year-olds it's 25.8 per cent. But for all those who think, this could be my child — there are those thinking, 'What about the likes of 'the Nottingham killer'?' This paranoid schizophrenic patient, repeatedly sectioned and with a record of 'extremely serious' violence, was allowed to stop his medication and go free (despite warnings from his family). He murdered three people. We've all seen their faces. Their grieving families. Many patients Jackson encounters exhibit disturbing, frightening behaviour. Some are misunderstood rather than psychotic, she believes — and some are dangerous and violent. Not everyone can recover, surely? 'I agree with that,' she says. So when does giving the benefit of the doubt put others at risk? Jackson stresses she's not denying that some people are very disturbed and need monitoring. 'And we can wonder about what happened to them.' Distinguishing between the dangerous and the harmless, 'figuring out what the dangers are and the risks', she believes, requires 'exploration and curiosity and needing to look at the context and seeing everyone as individuals'. Not, as she saw, 'a blanket approach'. She says: 'The 'how do we get it right' question is something I can't answer.' Having left the profession shortly after qualifying, she still feels some shame that she was 'too crushed' to stay within it. But she remains 'honoured' to help people with their mental health. ('I am not a 'silent therapist',' she promises, on her website, 'and will bring warm, gentle inquisitive exploration to our sessions.') Meanwhile, what Jackson is certain of is this: 'The system we have now is not making it safer for people. It's not reducing the number of suicides or violent crimes. What we're doing now isn't working.'Fragile Minds: Stories from an NHS Mental Health Ward by Bella Jackson (Doubleday £20) is out now
Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
Drones are sending 'overwhelming amounts' of drugs into prisons - and could help inmates escape, report warns
Sophisticated drones sending "overwhelming amounts" of drugs and weapons into prisons represent a threat to national security, according to an annual inspection report by the prisons watchdog. HMP chief inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor has warned criminal gangs are targeting jails and making huge profits selling contraband to a "vulnerable and bored" prison population. The watchdog boss reiterated his concerns about drones making regular deliveries to two Category A jails, HMP Long Lartin and HMP Manchester, which hold "the most dangerous men in the country", including terrorists. 2:28 Mr Taylor said "the police and prison service have in effect ceded the airspace" above these two high-security prisons, which he said was compromising the "safety of staff, prisoners, and ultimately that of the public". "The possibility now whereby we're seeing packages of up to 10kg brought in by serious organised crime means that in some prisons there is now a menu of drugs available," he said. "Anything from steroids to cannabis, to things like spice and cocaine." "Drone technology is moving fast... there is a level of risk that's posed by drones that I think is different from what we've seen in the past," warned the chief inspector - who also said there's a "theoretical risk" that a prisoner could escape by being carried out of a jail by a drone. He urged the prison service to "get a grip" of the issue, stating: "We'd like to see the government, security services, coming together, using technology, using intelligence, so that this risk doesn't materialise." The report makes clear that physical security - such as netting, windows and CCTV - is "inadequate" in some jails, including Manchester, with "inexperienced staff" being "manipulated". Mr Taylor said there are "basic" measures which could help prevent the use of drones, such as mowing the lawn, "so we don't get packages disguised as things like astro turf". Responding to the report, the Prison Advice and Care Trust (PACT) said: "The ready access to drugs is deeply worrying and is undermining efforts to create places of rehabilitation." Mr Taylor's report found that overcrowding continues to be what he described as a "major issue", with increasing levels of violence against staff and between prisoners, combined with a lack of purposeful activity. Some 20% of adult men responding to prisoner surveys said they felt unsafe at the time of the inspection, increasing to 30% in the high security estate. Andrea Coomber, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: "This report is a checklist for all the reasons the government must prioritise reducing prison numbers, urgently. "Sentencing reform is essential, and sensible steps to reduce the prison population would save lives." 0:51 The report comes after the government pledged to accept most of the recommendations proposed in the independent review of sentencing policy, with the aim of freeing up around 9,500 spaces. Those measures won't come into effect until spring 2026. Prisons Minister Lord Timpson said Mr Taylor's findings show "the scale of the crisis" the government "inherited", with "prisons dangerously full, rife with drugs and violence". He said: "After just 500 prison places added in 14 years, we're building 14,000 extra - with 2,400 already delivered - and reforming sentencing to ensure we never run out of space again.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Drugs smuggled into prisons 'destabilising' them, watchdog says
An overwhelming amount of drugs being smuggled into prisons in England and Wales is "destabilising" the system and hindering efforts to stop re-offending, a watchdog has are being targeted by criminal gangs using drones to fly in contraband to sell to bored inmates being kept in cramped conditions, according to the chief inspector of prisons' annual report."This meant in many jails, there were seemingly uncontrolled levels of criminality that hard-pressed and often inexperienced staff were unable to contain," Charlie Taylor Minister Lord Timpson said the report showed the "scale of the crisis we inherited" and that the government was working to end the "chaos". The damning report published on Tuesday found overcrowding and staffing shortages were contributing to a lack of purposeful activities for prisoners to do that would aid their rehabilitation, with many turning to drugs to keep themselves staff and prisoners have been saying for several years that far too little is being done to keep drugs out of prisons.A survey of 5,431 prisoners found 39% said it was easy to acquire drugs, while 30% of random drug tests came back positive. In one prison, HMP Hindley, this rate was almost double. An inspection of HMP Bedford found random drug testing had not been conducted for 12 months despite drugs being a "significant threat to safety".Drugs are smuggled into prisons by visitors or staff, thrown over fences or flown in using inmate serving time for a violent offence told the BBC that getting drugs inside was "super easy".Speaking from his cell on an illegal phone, he said: "If you want spice [synthetic cannabis] or weed or something stronger, you can get it in a jiffy. Everyone inside knows who's got some. You can smell it across the wings. "The boredom is too much and sometimes you just want something to take your mind off it so you'll get high."The report said drones were being used to make regular deliveries to HMP Manchester and Long Lartin - which hold "some of the most dangerous men in the country, including terrorists and organised crime bosses".It said that physical security measures were inadequate, while at HMP Manchester "inexperienced staff were being manipulated or simply ignored by prisoners".Mr Taylor said the failure to tackle these issues presented a threat to national security."The challenge for the prison service must be to work in conjunction with the police and security services to manage prisoners associated with organised crime," Mr Taylor said."This is a threat that needs to be taken seriously at the highest levels of government." The report also found: Prisoners were spending too long locked in cells, with limited opportunities to spend time in fresh air or take part in recreational activitiesPrisoners in full-time work or education missed out on other activitiesPrisoners released early to ease overcrowding had placed a "huge burden on already-overstretched" probation unitsThe population is growing "faster than new [prison] spaces can be made available"Lord Timpson said the report highlighted the "unacceptable pressures faced by our hardworking staff".Addressing the issue of overcrowding, he said the government was building 14,000 extra places, with 2,400 already delivered, and "reforming sentencing to ensure we never run out of space again". He added that the government had pledged £40m to improve prison security, including enhanced CCTV, new windows and floodlighting. The Prison Service is also employing x-ray body scanners and detection dogs to combat government hopes reforms to sentencing will allow more prisoners to be released early, freeing up prison drugs in prison are nothing new, and as long as there is a demand, new ways are likely to be created to bring them drug dealers and addicts doing time, and a constant appetite to make cash, drugs are something that will continue to be an irresistible temptation to those inside.
