Prisoners order drugs to their cell with drones ‘ like Deliveroo service’
‘Direct to the windows’
PRISONERS are ordering illegal drugs direct to their cells like a ‘Deliveroo’ takeaway service, the Justice Secretary said yesterday.
David Gauke said inmates were able to buy illicit substances using smuggled mobile phones and have the packages flown by drones direct to cell windows.
In a damning verdict on the state of jails in England and Wales, he also described how friends of prisoners were sneaking drugs into prisons by lacing children’s paintings and fake legal letters with new psychoactive substances, such as ‘zombie drug’ Spice.
Drug dealing in jails has now become so lucrative that freed prisoners are deliberately breaking their parole conditions so they can return to carry on their trade, he said.
Mr Gauke said spiralling use of Spice was responsible for a horrific escalation in violence.
In his first major speech since becoming Justice Secretary in January, he admitted that the country’s prisons had ‘fallen below the standards that we expect’.
The Cabinet minister said new technology meant organised gangs were more bold in their smuggling methods. He said: ‘While there has always been lowlevel networks dealing in cigarettes or illegal contraband, the criminal networks and supply chains have recently got larger and more complex and new technologies have empowered gangs to be more sophisticated and brazen about the way drugs are smuggled in.
‘Spice, and other drugs, ordered with a “Deliveroo- style” responsiveness Drones are used for smuggling on tiny mobile phones from prison cells and delivered by drones direct to cell windows. The paint used in supposed children’s drawings sent to their parents in prison laced with liquid psychoactive drugs, or the pages of fake legal letters purporting to be from a prisoner’s solicitor soaked in drugs.’ Mr Gauke said he had been ‘shocked and sickened’ by videos of prisoners posted on social media which show the ‘terrifying’ impact of Spice.
In one clip, two naked prisoners, believing they were dogs, were seen barking at and fighting each other with makeshift muzzles and leads around their necks.
Prison watchdogs have repeatedly warned the trade of illicit goods is fuelling soaring violence, self-harm and disorder in jails, putting inmates in debt and leaving them vulnerable to intimidation. Mr Gauke vowed to ‘cut off’ crime kingpins running gangs from a phone in their cell.
The minister will spend £14million setting up an intelligence unit, and will put new technology in 30 prisons so officers can download data from seized phones immediately, instead of sending it away to be processed which can take months. Mr Gauke said: ‘If a phone has details about an expected drone drop later that day, officers will be able to know where, how and when and can act on that intelligence and intercept it.’
He said incentives could be used more effectively, such as offering well-behaved prisoners extra contact time with family via Skype.
Ministers are also looking at how the release on temporary licence scheme could be used to allow some inmates to leave prison daily to go to work.
His speech came as prison officers threatened industrial action – in defiance of a High Court ban – unless measures were taken to tackle assaults on staff. Last year there were 7,828 attacks on prison officers by inmates.
The Prison Officers Association demanded all officers be equipped with a substance similar to pepper spray to defend themselves against the most aggressive inmates.