, Labour’s Shadow Justice
Secretary, responding to the announcement of new
funds to tackle prison insecurity said:
“These measures fall woefully short of what is needed to make our
prisons safe. Faced with a prisons emergency caused by austerity,
is timidly tinkering at the
edges.
"Reckless Tory cuts to staffing and budgets unleashed
unprecedented levels of violence in our prisons. The Tories have
slashed the prisons budget by hundreds of millions of pounds and
there are still thousands fewer prison officers than when they
came to power. Our prisons have too few staff to safely
manage the existing prison population, never mind any planned
expansion.
“Boris Johnson should set out a detailed plan and provide proper
funding to ensure that our prisons have the staffing and
resources needed to focus on rehabilitation and reducing
re-offending.”
Ends
Notes to editor
· Latest
figures show a record high of 34,425 assault incidents in the 12
months to March 2019, up 11% from the previous year.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/820627/safety-in-custody-q1-2019.pdf
· The latest
figures show 22,630 prison officers in post compared to 24,830 in
March 2010.
See Table 4 of https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/801838/hr-publication-tables-march-2019.xlsx andhttps://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/755731/hmpps-workforce-statistics-tables-sept-2018.xlsx
· Tory cuts
to prison budgets can be seen in this graph from the Institute
for Government
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/performance-tracker-2018/prisons
