The truth is our jails are holiday camps . . . with drugs

NHS psychiatrist Max Pemberton may make you rethink your life

WHeN did you first start using drugs?’ I asked the man sitting in front of me.

He thought for a moment. ‘About two years ago,’ he said.

I looked down at his notes. ‘About the same time you went to prison?’ I asked. He nodded.

‘I first tried heroin in prison,’ he said. ‘I got hooked. I started to do a lot of crack in there, too. And cocaine.’

‘But hang on,’ I interrupted. ‘You were in prison.’

The man laughed at my naivety. ‘It’s easier to score drugs in prison than it is outside, mate.’

This conversation, which took place a few years ago, was with my first patient in the drugs clinic I had started working at. The clinic was near a large prison and, on release, every convict with a history of substance abuse was sent to me. This man was the first of many I saw who not only used drugs while in prison, but became an addict there.

In fact, during the time I worked in that clinic, I saw more people who had become addicts while serving time than those who had been addicts beforehand. Drugs are now so rife in prisons that, according to a Royal College of Nursing report this week, staff have required hospital treatment for accidentally inhaling fumes from spice — the so-called ‘zombie drug’, a form of synthetic cannabis — while treating inmates.

Last year, 16 prison officers from Holme House prison in County Durham had to take time off after breathing in spice smoke in the cells. FOR

today’s inmates, it seems, prison is an opportunity to sit, stoned off your face, watching Tv while someone else does your cooking for you. It’s a holiday camp with drugs. And that’s not my view — but what patients have told me time and time again.

As one said, prison is not a deterrent; it’s a nice break from the realities of life.

Probably one of the most shocking things I heard was from one young man, not more than about 20, who said he’d rather be in prison because the drugs he could get inside were better quality than the stuff being sold on the streets.

I can’t be alone in thinking this is utter madness. How can it be that our prisons are now places where it’s easier to break the law than it is outside? What kind of warped message is this giving to those we lock up? Isn’t this the very antithesis of what prison should be about?

It would be easy to blame the wardens, but it’s not their fault. Many have spoken to me about their frustration at what they see. Health care staff tell of the utter futility of trying to implement change because they are not supported from above.

This is one of the reasons prison staff retention is so poor — people come with the idea that a prison is a place of rehabilitation, but soon realise it’s little more than a holding pen. Staff leave in droves, meaning that many prisons are understaffed, which further perpetuates the problem.

One nurse who worked in a prison told me that staff know all too well who is bringing in drugs, and how.

He said dealers would sometimes throw dead pigeons stuffed with drugs over the prison walls to be collected by inmates and their contents distributed.

Mobile phones are everywhere, he explained, so co-ordinating this kind of activity is easy. There have even been cases of drones dropping off supplies.

Wardens see it all, but are powerless — there aren’t the staff numbers to quell the aggravation caused when they try to clamp down. Nor is there the political will to stamp out the problem. BuT

let’s be honest — it’s not that difficult to stamp out. If airports can prevent people smuggling drugs onto flights, then surely a prison can do the same.

But in order to put in place effective mechanisms to stop the torrent of drugs flooding into prisons, the Government has to decide that this is a priority.

HM Prison and Probation service needs to make a firm commitment that it is going to clamp down on drugs in prisons and do so with immediate effect. Otherwise we are making a mockery of the justice system.

Prison shouldn’t simply be a punishment. It should provide an opportunity for people to reflect on their crimes and to make positive changes in their lives.

What it most certainly shouldn’t be is a place which turns people into drug addicts.