Raab hails scanners for cutting drugs in jail

X-ray technology thwarts 10,000 attempts to smuggle weapons, phones and cocaine into prisons

‘Each seizure keeps our prison estate and staff safer, so it can be used to rehabilitate offenders’

‘With the increased certainty of being caught, inmates are less likely to attempt to smuggle in contraband’

A TECHNOLOGICAL revolution is required in jails to stamp out drugs and violence, says Dominic Raab, as he announced every men’s prison has been equipped with X-ray body scanners to combat smuggling.

In an article for The Telegraph, the new Justice Secretary discloses the scanners have already uncovered 10,000 attempts by criminals to smuggle in drugs, weapons and phones inside their bodies.

The scanners – installed in all 73 male closed jails in England and Wales – are detecting illegal items at a rate of nearly 30 a day that would not otherwise have been found.

Offenders have reverted to swallowing or inserting custom-made plastic phones the size of lipstick cases to evade metal detector checks as well as drugs to foil sniffer dogs.

However, hundreds are now being thwarted by the bespoke new X-ray machines that generate instant highresolution images to expose objects as small as a Sim card or wrap of drugs.

Mr Raab said the cutting-edge technology was a “game-changer” that would provide “an extra layer of protection against a new generation of threats.”

One prisoner was caught with 50 wraps of crack cocaine in their bowel with a prison value of up to £4,000.

“Each seizure keeps our prison estate and staff safer, so it can be used to rehabilitate offenders. It also has a powerful effect on inmates and visitors,” he said.

“With the increased certainty of being caught and punished, they are less likely to attempt to smuggle in contraband – and, in turn, that renders them less vulnerable to blackmail and threats from predatory gangs on the outside.”

The scanners – part of a £100 million investment in security measures – have picked up knives wrapped in tape, Spice sachets, morphine tablets, mobile phones, SIM cards, phone chargers and tobacco, where a £10 packet can be worth £100 inside prison.

Metal detecting arches – already installed at 35 prisons – are set to be expanded along with phone blocking technology and phone detection equipment where staff use “heat” maps to pinpoint cells in which inmates are using illegal mobiles.

Mr Raab has also committed a portion of a £19million innovation fund to develop drug tags, where an offender could be regularly tested in situ to ensure they remained clean on release from prison.

He announced last week a doubling to 25,000 in the number of criminals being fitted with GPS tags to track their movements or sobriety tags to prevent them returning to drink.

He said the measures were designed to protect the public and boost the chances of rehabilitation by making prisons safer as well as reducing reoffending, which is estimated to cost the economy and society £18 billion.

Mark Fairhurst, chairman of the Prison Officers’ Association, said the scanners were “the most beneficial technology that has ever been introduced into our prisons”.

However, he urged ministers to make it a blanket requirement that all prisoners, staff and visitors should be scanned before entering jails.

Under current rules, prisoners are only scanned where there is intelligence or evidence that they may have hidden contraband in their bodies because of health and human rights concerns over radiation from the equipment.

One target, based on intelligence, are criminals released from prison but who return after breaching their licence – sometimes deliberately.

Evidence suggests that they are the most likely smugglers, attempting to bring illegal items into jails inside their bodies.

“They [the new scanners] are used on suspicion only,” said Mr Fairhurst. “We would like a blanket approach so that we can be certain there is nothing coming in.”