MP, Labour’s Shadow Justice
Secretary, responding to the keynote speech by
, Secretary of State for Justice
on prisons, said:
“This speech shows the Conservatives have nothing to offer to
address the scale of the crisis in our prisons.
"Tory cuts to staff and budgets have created the dire situation
in our prisons. Since the so-called Government recruitment drive
began, one in five prisons has seen a further fall in prison
officer numbers. It is even worse at high security prisons, where
a third have fewer prisons officers than one year ago.
"With even greater budget cuts planned over the coming years,
there is a real danger that our prisons will move beyond crisis
to a full-blown emergency.”
Ends
Notes to editors:
- · Action
on disrupting illicit mobile phone use was announced by the then
Justice Secretary at the end of 2016:
‘Prisoners will have their mobiles cut off as Justice Secretary
launches £550m bid to tackle the
prison crisis’ Sun, 24 November 2016, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2257411/prisoners-will-have-their-mobiles-cut-off-as-justice-secretary-liz-truss-launches-550m-bid-to-tackle-the-prison-crisis/
- · In
April last year, the MoJ said it was setting up a new taskforce
to tackle the use of drones to smuggle contraband into prisons:
o ‘New squad formed to tackle drone threat to
prisons’,
o MoJ press release, 17 April
2017, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-squad-formed-to-tackle-drone-threat-to-prisons
- · And in
October, the then Prisons Minister said an intelligence unit to
deal with organised crime had already been set up:
o “An additional £3 million is being invested in
a national intelligence team to help to tackle serious and
organised crime. This will allow us to deal with serious and
organised crime in our prisons and in our communities. We will be
working with the Home Office on this project to improve prison
security and social reform.”
o , Hansard, 31 October 2017, c.
691, https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2017-10-31/debates/283DA246-AFA6-4D24-A77C-503FB37E4F59/DronesPrisons
o “As I said, we have an intelligence unit
dealing with organised crime in our prisons in a very concerted
way across the estate. We are doing that alongside investing in
anti-drone and mobile phone detection technology. Bringing this
together will mean that we are able to deal with the threat that
drones pose across the prison estate and, as I said to my hon.
Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare), in the
community. Organised crime is not just in the prison estate, but
often in the community.”
o , Hansard, 31 October 2017, c.
691, https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2017-10-31/debates/283DA246-AFA6-4D24-A77C-503FB37E4F59/DronesPrisons
