Revealed: Scale of drug-taking and violence in ‘Dickensian’ Strangeways
A DISTURBING picture of life inside Strangeways prison is painted by official data scrutinised by the M.E.N.
The prison was branded ‘squalid and vermin-infested’ in a damning independent report just four months ago, in which conditions were also described as ‘more reminiscent of Dickensian England.’
Now exclusive M.E.N. analysis of government data has revealed the extent of drug-taking and violence behind the walls of HMP Manchester, locally known as Strangeways. Our data team looked at a range of categories used to record aspects of life and incidents inside jails, including rule-breaking, overcrowding and apparently self-inflicted deaths.
We found that across prisons in England and Wales, more inmates are self-harming and attacking each other than ever before. At Strangeways there were almost 100 assaults on staff and four cases of prisoners apparently taking their own lives in 2016.
We ranked each prison on each of the indicators, from best to worst – and used rates for every 100 prisoners to make sure jails were being fairly compared.
The ranks were then added up to give an overall rating for each prison. HMP Manchester came 94th out of 117 in the country.
Campaigners said that taken together, the figures ‘illustrate the scale of the crisis engulfing the prison system.’
The Independent Monitoring Board’s report, published in September last year, raised concerns about staffing levels, which it said had resulted in an increase in assaults by prisoners on guards. Our study found violence against staff at HMP Manchester hit a worrying level last year, with 92 recorded assaults. Some 16.7 per cent of prisoners tested positive for banned substances in Manchester – the highest for the facility in six years of data. And four men apparently took their own lives there – either by suicide or by accident – in 2016. It represents the highest yearly total since 2006, when there were also four.
Nationally, the figures also show that the rate of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults has gone up by twothirds between 2013 and 2016.
The largely Victorian prison can accommodate up to 1,167 prisoners, including 40 in Category A.
Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “These figures illustrate the scale of the crisis engulfing the prison system, and should concern everyone because problems in jails will eventually spill out into the community.
“Allowing the number of people behind bars to grow unchecked, while starving overcrowded prisons of resources, has created a toxic mix of violence, death and human misery.
“The government must act now to reduce the prison population.”
A Prison Service spokesman said: “We know that our prisons have faced a number of longstanding challenges, and it is vital we do everything we can to tackle those issues that undermine security. We have implemented a range of measures to increase safety across the estate, including the provision of body-worn cameras and the installation of CCTV, and have taken decisive action to stop the flow of illegal and dangerous contraband. Boosting the frontline is also critical to achieving safety, and we have invested £100m to boost the front line by 2,500 prison officers over the next 18 months.”
The M.E.N. calculated rankings differently from the Ministry of Justice, which runs its own prison rating system using drugs testing rates and other factors.