Who would be a prison guard?
STABBED in the head, an eye almost gouged out, these horrific pictures show what prison officers face.
These sickening attacks by inmates are some of the 10,000-plus injuries inflicted on staff in a year. More than 1,000 were serious.
Mick Pimblett, of the prison officers’ association which released the photos, said: “They demonstrate the true scale of the problem. Every day staff are forced to put their lives at risk to keep dangerous inmates at bay.”
Last month five guards were hospitalised by an inmate at HMP Bristol. Meanwhile Brusthom Ziamani, 24, jailed in 2015 for plotting to behead an Army cadet, was named as the alleged attacker of five officers seriously injured at category A Whitemoor jail in Cambridgeshire.
Mr Pimblett claimed officers lack the protection, resources and equipment to do their jobs.
He said: “These men and women, who have families, are being put in danger by cuts and a lack of protective equipment.”
There were also more than 24,000 prisoner on prisoner assaults in the year to June 2019, equivalent to 66 a day. Tory budget cuts are piling pressure on a dwindling workforce who have to tackle record levels of violence, self harm and suicides.
The POA says it has lost in excess of 7,000 frontline staff since 2010 – and hundreds left last year alone.
Last year the Sunday People revealed over the past five years more than 1,700 officers have quit the Prison Service before completing 12 months of work. In the past year alone more than 650 new prison staff on a starting salary of £22,000 walked away within a year.
A source said: “It’s terrifying that the prison population has more than doubled in 25 years but we’re not keeping up.”