Forest Bank WORST for drugs finds
MORE drug seizures were made at Forest Bank last year than at any other jail in England and Wales.
Prison officers at the privately-run jail confiscated drugs 537 times in 2017/18. It’s the third year in a row the Salford prison, run by contractor Sodexo, has had the highest number of seizures.
In total 7.3 kilos of illegal substances were discovered, amongst other contraband. Psychoactives – formerly legal highs – such as Spice and Black Mamba were the most common find, being confiscated 203 times.
Earlier this year prison officers chief Steve Gillan said Spice use among prisoners was at ‘epidemic’ levels and ‘beyond crisis point.’
Cannabis was discovered by guards at Forest Bank 140 times last year, while cocaine was confiscated 16 times and four heroin seizures were made.
And 498 mobile phones and 211 SIM cards were also seized from inmates.
Rob Preece, from prisons campaign group The Howard League for Penal Reform, said the figures show ‘drugs still present a significant challenge at Forest Bank.’
He added: “Where there is drug abuse there is also debt and violence, and these problems have become more severe in prisons across England and Wales as overcrowding and staff shortages have taken their toll.
“The best way to reduce the supply of drugs into prisons is to reduce the demand for them. This means ensuring that prisons are properly resourced and prisoners are occupied with purposeful activity, such as work, education, training and exercise.
A spokesman for Forest Bank said: “Preventing drugs from entering the prison is a key priority for our staff at HMP Forest Bank. These figures reflect the hard work and diligence of our staff in preventing illicit items getting into the prison and in detecting such items when they do.
“We continue to explore and invest in new technological solutions as well as working closely with law enforcement agencies to tackle this issue and disrupt the supply of drugs into the prison.”
The figures, published by Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service which oversees the running of prisons in England and Wales, also show drugs were seized 153 times at HMP Manchester, formerly Strangeways, with 35 of them being psychoactive substances.
That’s a 13 per cent fall from the year before.
Officers also confiscated 168 phones and 83 SIM cards – down from 180 and 120 in 2016/17.
A spokesman for the Prison Service, which runs HMP Manchester, said: “These statistics show that we are successfully stopping contraband from entering the prison estate.”