Jail squad called out 580 times to tackle incidents

AN ELITE group of specially trained prison officers had to be deployed to jails in England and Wales 580 times last year, new figures show.

Members of the crack National Tactical Response Group were sent to incidents ranging from the full-scale riot that gripped Birmingham’s Winson Green jail to hostage situations.

Figures released by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) after a Freedom of Information request show the tempo of call-outs to prisons has increased year on year.

The Prison Officers’ Association said the data showed the “reality” of prisons needing national support “to maintain security and control” after what it claimed were “year-on-year budget cuts”.

Labour claimed the data underlined “counter-productive” cuts to the prison service under the Conservative Government which had led to “an epidemic of violence” in the country’s jails.

But the MoJ said the “majority” of the deployments were to nonviolent incidents, and often precautionary.

In 2010, the squad was called to jails 118 times in total, but in 2014 there were 223 call-outs, and in 2015 it had risen to more than 340.

The 40-strong team had already been deployed 110 times from January to April this year – the most recent figures available.

Those incidents include occasions of “concerted indiscipline”, “barricade” events and “incidents at height”, which can mean anything from prisoners on a cellblock’s anti-suicide netting to inmates on an internal roof.

During their busiest month in May 2016, the squad were sent out 67 separate times to 39 different jails, dealing with inmate disorder, hostage events and incidents at height, among others.

In the case of two jails, HMP Lindholme in Doncaster and HMP Nottingham, the specialists had to be called in nearly every month of that year.

An MoJ spokesman said: “The majority of call-outs are for nonviolent incidents when the officers only attend as a precaution or when the situation was already resolved by prison staff.” The MoJ previously announced the recruitment of 2,500 extra prison officers and security measures to tackle problems such as drones.