Hit squads to seize drugs and phones inside 100 jails
New teams will use hi-tech in a ‘cat and mouse game’ to curb growing violence caused by smuggling gangs
HIT SQUADS of specially trained officers are to be sent into more than 100 prisons across Britain to seize drugs, drones and mobile phones.
The Ministry of Justice is to recruit and train 100 new staff for the squads to combat gangs and organised crime blamed for inciting record levels of violence in jails.
The tactics have until now been restricted to the country’s eight high security prisons. The teams will use the latest mobile phone detecting technology, search dogs, specialist cameras to examine pipes, and scanners and metal detectors to seek out contraband.
Officials say they are engaged in a “cat and mouse game” with inmates who are deploying increasingly sophisticated tactics to hide their illegal wares such as hollowing out furniture to hold drugs or mobiles, and hiding miniature phones in electrical equipment or down lavatory pipes.
Announcing the measure today, David Gauke, the Justice Secretary, said: “The dedicated search teams will be deployed across the entire closed adult male estate to effectively bust drug dealers and gangs who trade in contraband in prisons. The ability to have people who, day in day out, search cells, know every trick in the book, have seen it all before, is a big advantage.
“I am keen to take on the crime kingpins, to do everything we can to disrupt their activity. That’s why I have also concentrated on a financial crime unit.”
Officials estimate there are about 6,500 inmates with links to organised crime in England and Wales out of a total prison population of 83,000.
The teams will rely on intelligence to target suspects, including those who are known to deliberately breach their licences on release so they can return to jail. Pilot searches in the past few months netted more 140 illegal phones.
The ministry has also introduced airport security-style scanners, phoneblocking technology, and the financial crime unit to target the crime gangs operating in prisons.
Mr Gauke said: “It is clearly a significant challenge… The existence of organised crime is clear. The evidence that it is at the heart of a lot of our problems, directly or indirectly, is also clear.”
The £4.3 million move follows increasing violence in prisons fuelled by drugs. Figures last month showed there were 32,559 assaults in the last year – on average one every 20 minutes – the highest on record, and up 20 per cent on the previous year. Of these, 72 per cent were prisoner-on-prisoner attacks, while 9,485 were attacks on staff.
In the 12 months to March, there were 13,119 incidents where drugs were found in prisons – a rise of 23 per cent compared with the previous year. Discoveries of mobile phones are also on the rise, up by 15 per cent to 10,643 incidents in 2017-18.