Labour fully backs prison officers over threats to their safety - Richard Burgon

Responding to the protest action by prison officers over health and safety concerns, Richard Burgon MP, Labour’s Shadow Justice Secretary, said:

 

“Conservative cuts to prison budgets and staffing levels have led to violence spiralling out of control in our prisons. Prison staff all too often pay the price, with assaults on officers doubling since Tory cuts started to bite.

"Prison officers should not have to go to work fearing for their personal safety. Labour is on the side of our hard working prison staff who have rightly had enough of the unnecessary danger and preventable assaults they are forced to endure every day. The Government needs to take urgent action to win back their support and guarantee their safety.

"We fully back the prison officers' demand for urgent action to end the very real threats to their safety. To stabilise our prisons, the Government needs to launch an emergency plan with substantial new funds to end understaffing and overcrowding across the prison estate."

Ends

Notes

There were 9,003 assaults on staff in the 12 months to March 2018

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/729496/safety-in-custody-bulletin-2018-Q1.pdf