Prison Safety in England and Wales - Parliament.uk

BRIEFING PAPER Number CBP07467, 10 August 2017

Prison Safety in England and Wales

By Jacqueline Beard

Contents: 1. The decline in prison safety 2. The statistics: an overview 3. Her Majesty’s Chief Inspectors of Prisons 4. The Justice Committee 5. Self-inflicted deaths 6. Assaults 7. Government policy

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Prison Safety in England and Wales

Contents Summary

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1.

The decline in prison safety

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2.

The statistics: an overview

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3.

Her Majesty’s Chief Inspectors of Prisons

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4.

The Justice Committee Prisons: Planning and policies - March 2015 The Prison Safety report – May 2016 Prison reform

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5. 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5

Self-inflicted deaths The Howard League and the Centre for Mental Health – prison suicide The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman The Harris Review Joint Committee on Human Rights – Mental health and deaths in prisons National Audit Office - Mental health in prisons

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6. 6.1

Assaults What lies behind prison violence? New psychoactive substances Assaults against staff: Industrial action

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Government policy Prison Service Instructions Health services in prison, including mental health and substance misuse services Protocol on handling crimes in prisons Additional funding The white paper: Prison Safety and Reform Implementation of reforms The Prisons and Courts Bill 2016/17 The 2017 Queen’s Speech and an open letter from the Justice Secretary

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6.2 7. 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6

Cover page image copyright HM Prison Manchester-Strangeways by robert wade. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 / image cropped

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Commons Library Briefing, 10 August 2017

Summary From 2012 there has been a decline in prison safety. The Justice Committee has described a rapid and ongoing deterioration. Chief Inspectors of Prisons, the Prison and Probation Ombudsman and interested organisations have, for some time, expressed concern. Various explanations have been offered for this decline in safety. These include factors such as reductions in staffing and difficulties retaining staff, high levels of drug use and particularly new psychoactive substances (NPS), overcrowding and long term shifts in the nature of the prison population. The Government has acknowledged the decline and responded to these concerns. A white paper, Prison Safety and Reform, published in November 2016 said that the Government’s analysis showed “a statistical correlation between the numbers of staff and the level of violent incidents” and concluded that more frontline staff were needed. The Government has committed to additional funding to recruit more staff. The white paper included measures to address the use of NPS, mobile phones and drones. The Prisons and Courts Bill 2016-2017 included legislative measures proposed in the white paper, including on testing for psychoactive substances. However the bill was lost at the dissolution of Parliament before the 2017 general election. There was no prisons legislation announced in the 2017 Queen’s Speech. The newly appointed Justice Secretary, David Lidington, said in an open letter that work on prison reform will continue.

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1. The decline in prison safety From 2012 there has been a decline in prison safety. In March 2015 the Justice Committee had noted that all available indicators were pointing to a rapid deterioration in standards of safety in the preceding year or so. 1 In May 2016 the Committee described an “ongoing and rapid deterioration”. 2 Ministry of Justice statistics published in April 2017 show deaths in custody, self-inflicted deaths, number of self-harm incidents and assaults have all increased in the most recent year available. 3 There have been a number of high profile incidents recently that have added to concerns about safety across the prison estate. For example, a prisoner was stabbed to death in HMP Pentonville on 19 October 2016 and two further prisoners were injured in an incident which the Prison Governors Association reportedly called “no massive surprise”. 4 Two prisoners escaped from the same prison on 7 November 2016. 5 There were reports about a riot involving 230 prisoners in HMP Bedford on 6 November 2016. 6 On 16 December 2016 there were reports of a riot lasting 12 hours and initially involving 260 prisoners at HMP Birmingham. 7 Prison safety has attracted recent parliamentary attention, including an opposition day debate in January 2016 on whether prisons are in crisis. 8 Various explanations have been offered for this decline in safety. These include factors such as reductions in staffing and difficulties retaining staff, high levels of drug use and particularly new psychoactive substances (NPS), overcrowding, the size of the prison population and changes in the make-up of the prison population.

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Justice Committee, Prisons: Planning and Policies, 18 March 2015, HC 309 2014-15, para 75 Justice Committee, Prison Safety, 16 May 2016, HC625 2015-16, p3 Ministry of Justice, Safety in custody: quarterly update to December 2016, 27 April 2017 “Pentonville stabbing: death prompts call for inquiry into state of jails in England and Wales”, Guardian, 19 October 2016 “Two Pentonville prisoners hid escape with 'pillow bodies'”, BBC News, 7 November 2016 “HMP Bedford riot: Dozens of inmates removed”, BBC News, 7 November 2016 “Riot officers enter HMP Birmingham amid disturbances”, BBC News, 16 December 2016 HC Deb 27 January 2016 c333ff

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Commons Library Briefing, 10 August 2017

2. The statistics: an overview The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) publishes a quarterly report of safety in custody statistics. The most recent update - Safety in custody: quarterly update to March 2017 - was published on 27 July 2017. The accompanying bulletin sets out the main findings: 9

Deaths in prison custody In the 12 months to June 2017 there were: •

316 deaths in prison custody (a rate of 3.7 deaths per 1,000 prisoners), an decrease of 6 (2%) compared to the same period of the previous year;

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97 apparent self-inflicted deaths, down 9% from 107 in the previous 12 month period;

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189 deaths due to natural causes, the same figure as the previous year. Natural cause deaths are the primary contributor to the increase in deaths overall, and the increase in natural cause deaths is largely explained by the ageing population;

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2 apparent homicides, down from 5 in the same period of the previous year; and

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28 other deaths, 25 of which are ‘awaiting further information’ prior to being classified.

Self-harm In the 12 months to March 2017: •

there were 40,414 reported incidents of self-harm, an increase of 5,749 (17%) from the previous year representing a record high level.

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there was a rate of 474 self-harm incidents per 1,000 prisoners, compared with 404 incidents per 1,000 prisoners in the previous year;

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11,010 prisoners self-harmed, up 978 (10%) from the previous year; and

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there were 2,771 hospital attendances, up 13% from the previous year. However, the proportion of self-harm incidents requiring hospital attendance has remained generally consistent in recent years, at around 7%.

Assaults In the 12 months to March 2017 there were: •

26,643 assault incidents, an increase of 4,464 incidents (20%) from the same period of the previous year with a rate of 312 assault incidents per 1,000 prisoners, up from 259 in the previous year;

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3,606 serious assaults, up 22% from the previous year;

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MoJ and National Statistics bulletin, Safety in Custody Statistics Bulletin England and Wales: Deaths in prison custody to June 2017; Assaults and Self-harm to March 2017, 27 July 2017

The Prison Reform Trust’s Prison: the facts- Bromley Briefings Summer 2017 offers facts and figures on many topics, including safety in prison.

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Prison Safety in England and Wales

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19,361 prisoner on prisoner assaults, up 16% from 16,731 incidents in the previous year - a rate of 227 prisoner on prisoner assault incidents per 1,000 prisoners, up from 195 in the same period of the previous year;

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2,825 serious prisoner on prisoner assaults, up 21% from 2,334 in the previous year;

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7,159 assaults on staff, up 32% from 5,409 in the previous year a rate of 84 assault on staff incidents per 1,000 prisoners, up from 63 in the previous year; and

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805 serious assaults on staff, up 25% from the previous year.

Further statistics are available in the Commons Library’s Briefing Paper: Prison Population Statistics.

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Commons Library Briefing, 10 August 2017

3. Her Majesty’s Chief Inspectors of Prisons Chief Inspectors of Prisons have repeatedly flagged up safety concerns, in their annual reports, particularly about adult male prisons. Safety is one of the four tests of a healthy establishment, against which prisons are assessed during inspections by Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales (HMCIP). 10 The HMCIP’s Annual Report 2013-14, from the then Chief Inspector of Prisons, Nick Hardwick, drew attention to “declining safety outcomes”. Whilst these could not be attributed to a single cause, he said that it was “impossible to escape the conclusion that the conjunction of resource, population and policy pressures” must be a very significant factor in the deterioration of safety. 11 Nick Hardwick returned to the theme of safety in his final annual report for 2014-15. Again he painted a bleak picture, with safety outcomes for adult male prisoners not good enough in more than half of prisons assessed, and declining in two out of five establishments inspected. 12In a press release accompanying the report, HMCIP argued that prisons were in decline and were at their worst for 10 years, with the problems being most acute in adult male prisons: The new Chief Inspector, Peter Clarke, published his Annual Report for 2015-16 on 19 July 2016. Its main conclusions on safety in male prisons were that these institutions were “still not safe”: •

There were continuing high and rising levels of self-inflicted deaths and serious self-harm among adult men in prisons.

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Violence had once again increased in almost every men’s prison reported on.

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Support for the victims of bullying and violence was generally weak, and resulted in long periods of isolation for many prisoners.

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New synthetic drugs were a growing problem, which needed a nationally coordinated response.

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Although there was a slight improvement on last year in the healthy prison assessments of safety, safety outcomes were still worse than at any time between 2007–08 and 2013–14. 13

Subsequent reports on individual prisons raised significant ongoing concerns in many establishments. For example, an inspection of HMP Pentonville published in June 2017 said:

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HMCIP, Inspection framework, May 2017, For further information about the criteria used for inspections see: HMCIP, Expectations: Inspection criteria HMCIP, Annual Report 2013-14, 21 October 2014, HC 680 2014-15, p11 HMCIP, Annual report for 2014-15, HC 242: page 32 HMCIP, Annual Report 2015-16, 19 July 2016, HC 471 2015-16

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Prison Safety in England and Wales

…we continued to have significant concerns about poor outcomes, particularly for the safety of the prison. Levels of violence remained too high and some of it was serious, including a homicide in late 2016. There had been five self-inflicted deaths since our last inspection, and frailties in the case management and care for men vulnerable to suicide and selfharm were evident. 14

An inspection report from an unannounced inspection of HMP Brixton, also published in June 2017, said: The level of violence was high and strategic violence reduction work was poor. The number of self-harm incidents had increased sharply since the previous inspection and we found some dangerous shortcomings in support procedures. Security arrangements were improving but endemic drug use contributed to significant instability in the prison. The segregation unit was a poor environment. Use of force was usually proportionate. Governance of the special cell was weak. Substance use services were good, but limited by the restricted regime. Outcomes for prisoners were poor against this healthy prison test. 15

Peter Clarke expressed disappointment that no prison reform legislation was announced in the 2017 Queen’s Speech, following the fall of the Prison and Courts Bill due to the dissolution of Parliament before the 2017 general election. He called it a missed opportunity. The 2016-17 HMCIP annual report expressed growing concerns regarding safety in adult male prisons: •

Safety had declined in 15 prisons inspected with just five prisons showing improvement.

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We continued to find gaps in the identification of risk for new prisoners at a time when they were at their most vulnerable.

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Levels of self-harm and the number of deaths in custody continued to rise at an alarming rate. Lack of activity, mental illness, illicit substances and growing debt all contributed to prisoner self-harm.

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Violence continued to escalate at an unacceptable rate, and significantly more prisoners than before told us that they felt unsafe. 16

In the introduction to the report Peter Clarke considered why prisons had become so unsafe. He said: Many of the reasons have been well documented. The prevalence of drugs inside prisons, and the seeming inability to keep them out has clearly been a major factor. Debt, bullying, and selfsegregation by prisoners looking to escape the violence generated by the drugs trade are commonplace. This has all been compounded by staffing levels in many jails that are simply too low to keep order and at the same time run a decent regime that allows prisoners to be let out of their cells to get to training and education, and have access to basic facilities.

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Report on an announced inspection of HMP Pentonville by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons,14 June 2017, p5 Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Brixton, 15 June 2017, p11 HMCIP, Annual Report 2016-17, 18 July 2016, HC 208, p20

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Commons Library Briefing, 10 August 2017

4. The Justice Committee Prisons: Planning and policies - March 2015 In its March 2015 report Prisons: Planning and policies, the Justice Committee described the decrease in safety as “particularly troubling”. It was unlikely (the Committee suggested) that decreased safety was not linked to changes in operational policy and falling staffing levels, amongst other things: The decrease in safety is particularly troubling, with an increase in assaults and self-inflicted deaths. We considered it improbable that there is no link between estate reconfiguration, benchmarking, and changes in operational policy, including the Incentives and Earned Privileges scheme, and the shift in safety across the prison estate. In particular, we conclude that the fall in staffing levels stemming from redundancies and increased turnover, which at their most acute have resulted in severely restricted regimes, are bound to have reduced the consistency of relationships between officers and prisoners, and in turn affected safety. 17

In its response to the Justice Committee, the MoJ said that dealing with issues of violence, self-harm and self-inflected deaths was a “major priority”. It pointed to the high proportion of prisoners who are vulnerable, in many cases because they had prior life experiences such as drug or alcohol abuse, social disadvantage, sexual or physical abuse or mental health problems which increased the likelihood of them harming or killing themselves The MoJ maintained that, although organisational change had had an impact, there was no straightforward causal link to rising self-inflicted deaths: We acknowledge both the rise in self-inflicted deaths and the extent and impacts of organisational change but we believe the relationships are far more complex than a causal link. Self-inflicted deaths have occurred in public sector and privately managed prisons, prisons with good and less good inspection ratings, in prisons with various levels of crowding, and across all Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP) scheme levels. Clear correlations and patterns do not emerge from the current data. 18

The Prison Safety report – May 2016 The Justice Committee examined the Government’s response to the “ongoing and rapid deterioration in prison safety” in its 2016 report, Prison Safety. The Committee found that …overall levels of safety in prisons are not stabilising as the

Ministry of Justice and the National Offender Management Service had hoped, let alone improving. This is a matter of great concern, and improvement is urgently needed. 19

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Justice Committee, Prisons: Planning and Policies, 18 March 2015, HC 309 2014-15, summary MoJ, Government Response to the Justice Committee’s Ninth Report of Session 2014-15: Prisons: Planning and Policies, Cm 9114, July 2015: pages 12-13 Para 39

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Staff retention Of particular concern to the Committee was staff retention: Of particular concern is a major issue with staff retention which resulted in a net gain of only 440 prison officers last year following the recruitment of 2,250. This is against the fact that there are 7,000 fewer officers than in 2010, when the prison population was about 2,500 lower than it is now. 20

The Committee’s central recommendation was that the MoJ and NOMS together produce an action plan for improving prison safety, addressing the factors underlying the rises in violence, self-harm and suicide. The Committee said it also wished to receive quarterly reports containing data which will enable progress against the plan to be evaluated. The Government’s response came in the form of a series of letters to the Committee. 21 The last of these, from the then Justice Secretary Liz Truss, said that “decisive action” was needed: We need decisive action to improve upon the current unacceptable levels of violence, self-harm and self-inflicted deaths. (…) We agree with the committee that it will take a variety of measures to achieve a safer prison estate, and these should be brought together into a single plan. The Government will publish a comprehensive prison safety and reform plan this autumn. In addition to the areas identified by the committee, this plan will also include the longer term reforms necessary to improve the prison system as a whole.

Prison reform The Committee announced a wide-ranging inquiry into prison reform in July 2016. 22 Sam Gyimah, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Prisons and Probation and Michael Spurr, Chief Executive Officer of the National Offender Management Service, 23 gave evidence to the Committee on 29 November 2016. 24 Sam Gyimah noted the need for increased staffing in order to tackle increased violence in prisons. Michael Spurr noted that

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Justice Committee, Prison Safety, 16 May 2016, HC625 2015-16, p3 Letter dated 19 May 2016 from Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, to Robert Neill MP, Chair, Justice Committee, on the Justice Committee Report on prison safety; Letter dated 30 June 2016 from Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, to Robert Neill MP, Chair, Justice Committee, on prison safety Letter dated 8 September 2016 to the Chair of the Committee from Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice Sub-inquiries into governor empowerment and prison performance, and estate modernisation were launched. A report on the former was published on 7 April 2017. NOMS has now been replaced by Her Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service and Michael Spurr is its Chief Executive Officer Justice Committee , Evidence given by Sam Gyimah MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Prisons and Probation, Ministry of Justice, Michael Spurr, Chief Executive, National Offender Management Service, 29 November 2016

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there had been a net reduction in staff in the last year due to staff leaving. 25 Sam Gyimah wrote to the Committee in February 2017, updating the Committee on a number of areas discussed when he appeared before the committee in November 2016. On staff retention he said: Prisons with the most difficult recruitment and retention issues will receive a boost under a scheme offering higher starting pay and an additional allowance of up to £5,000 per year. From 1 February 2017, at 31 prisons where we are having difficulties recruiting or experiencing high levels of staff turnover, all Band 3 prison officers on Fair and Sustainable terms will, as a minimum, be paid at the middle of the salary scale, with an additional allowance of up to £5,000 per year (depending on establishment) paid to them over the next four years. New recruits will also be brought in at the middle of the scale and will have the additional allowance applied. This scheme will replace all previous schemes (market supplements and retention allowances) which are already in place and no officers will suffer any financial detriment as a result of transitioning to this scheme. Current staff can expect to see the revised payments in their end of March 17 pay. 26

In a report published just before the dissolution for the 2017 election, Justice Committee: unfinished business from the 2015 Parliament, the Committee noted its difficulties in scrutinising government work on prison safety and predicted that prison safety would continue to be one of the key issues facing the MoJ: …it has remained difficult for us to properly scrutinise the effect of the Government’s efforts to improve the situation because we have not received all the information we repeatedly requested. We would urge the next Justice Committee to continue close scrutiny of the Government on prison safety, as this is likely to remain one of the key issues facing the Ministry of Justice. 27

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Ibid Q2 Letter dated 28 February 2017 and annexe from Sam Gyimah MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, to Bob Neill, Chair, Justice Committee, on prison safety and reform Justice Committee: unfinished business from the 2015 Parliament, 28 April 2017, para 10

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5. Self-inflicted deaths 5.1 The Howard League and the Centre for Mental Health – prison suicide The Howard League for Penal Reform and the Centre for Mental Health published a report, Preventing prison suicide: Perspectives from the Inside in November 2016. Key findings were: •

…(B)oth current and historic risk factors exacerbated vulnerability in prison

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Staff shortages have increased the risk of suicide

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Relationships between staff and prisoners are key. Prisoners need to feel supported, cared for and able to confide in and trust staff

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Prisoners described a culture where, on the whole, distress was not believed or responded to with compassion

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Change needs to happen across the system to recognize the influence of the prison environment on people’s vulnerability

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Arrival, being released and transferred were all cited as times when prisoners felt most vulnerable

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Staff inexperience and lack of training around mental health were seen as a significant factor in increasing risk. Mental health services in prison were mainly seen by prisoners as providers of medication

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Wellbeing groups, the chaplaincy and imams, peer mentor schemes and listening schemes were helpful

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Prisons should be enabling environments, striving to be a psychologically informed environment with an emphasis on the quality of relationships.

In an accompanying press release, the Howard League designated 2016 the “worst year ever recorded for suicide in prisons”. 28

5.2 The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman The website of the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman holds an archive of fatal incident reports and learning lessons reports. In his annual report for 2015-16, the Ombudsman commented on the rise in self-inflicted deaths in prisons: My tenure has coincided with a difficult period for prisons and probation. One consequence of this has been that demand for independent investigation of deaths and complaints remains unremittingly high. Over the past year, deaths in custody have risen sharply, with a shocking 34% rise in self-inflicted deaths, steadily rising numbers of deaths from natural causes and the highest number of homicides since my office was established. The number of complaints from prisoners also remains very high. (….)

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Howard League for Penal Reform, 2016 becomes worst year ever recorded for suicides in prisons, 28 November 2016

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Unfortunately, I have been saying many of the same things for much of my time in office. While resources and staffing in prisons are undeniably stretched, it is disappointing how often – after invariably accepting my recommendation – prisons struggle to sustain the improvement I call for. Improving safety and fairness is less about identifying new learning and more about implementing the learning already available. Ensuring real and lasting improvement in safety and fairness needs to be a focus of the new prison reform agenda. 29

In his annual report for 2016/17 the Ombudsman said that he could report “only limited improvement in prison safety and conditions over the past year”. He said that statistics on self-inflicted and other deaths, combined with higher levels of violence and significant disorder over the year, “indicate a prison system still very much in crisis”. He noted that the Government had recognised the need for reform and begun to make changes but argued that “these reforms will founder unless they are underpinned by a transformation in prison safety”. He said: One of the systemic failures is the apparent inability of prisons under pressure to learn lessons or to sustain improvement based on that learning. (…) In short, it is not lack of knowledge, but a lack of effective action that is at issue. The Government’s reform programme must address this anomalous situation. My recommendations and thematic lessons rarely say anything new – I have been saying many of the same things for many years. Nor are prisons, or the other services I investigate, hostile or unsympathetic to what I have to say. Almost all my recommendations were accepted last year and an action plan put in place for their implementation. But, too frequently, my colleagues at Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons – who, on their visits, routinely follow up on my fatal incident investigation recommendations – found that there had been a lack of action. Worse, my investigators were often called to new fatal incidents, only to find that previous lessons had not been learned – with tragic consequences. This level of repeat failure must not be allowed to continue. 30

In a thematic report published in March 2015 - Learning from PPO investigations: Self-inflicted deaths of prisoners 2013/14 - the Ombudsman again argued that, although the picture was not clear and there was no well-evidenced explanation of the sharply rising rate of self-inflicted deaths, there did seem to be some association between suicide, increased prison crowding and decreased time out of cell: This review reinforces the tentative view… that there is no simple well-evidenced answer to why self-inflicted deaths increased so sharply, so quickly. Some commentators have argued, perfectly reasonably, that staff reductions and other strains in the prison system may have reduced protective factors against suicide. This report does suggest some association between suicides and increased prison crowding, and between suicide and prisoners spending less time out of cell, but the picture is less than clear. For 29

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Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, Annual report 2015-16, Cm 9329, September 2016, p7 Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, Annual report 2016-17, Cm 9461, July 2017, p7

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example, 25% of deaths occurred among prisoners who had over 5 hours a day out of cell, and deaths occurred in a much wider range of prisons than the year before, including private prisons and high security prisons, both of which were largely immune from the cutbacks and pressures elsewhere in the estate. 31

The Ombudsman has also examined deaths in segregation in prison. He has observed that the number of self-inflicted deaths in segregation in 2013/14 was at its highest since 2004/05. 32 In January 2016 the Ombudsman published Learning from PPO investigations: Prisoner mental health. It considered the relationship between mental health issues and both self-inflicted and natural cause deaths. It concluded that the identification and treatment of mental health issues remained variable and that many areas for improvement were apparent. 33

5.3 The Harris Review The Harris Review into self-inflicted deaths in custody of people aged 18 to 24 was published in July 2015. The report said that the vulnerabilities and the loneliness of young adults in custody had implications for how prisons and young offender institutions should be run: The Review concluded that all young adults in custody are vulnerable. Moreover, the separation of young people from their families and support networks is likely to lead to loneliness and to exacerbate vulnerabilities. This has wide implications for the way in which prisons and YOIs should operate. 34

The report stated that its findings “echo[ed] the criticisms and recommendations made consistently and repeatedly throughout the last fifteen years and more”. Having noted that Prison Service Instructions, if implemented, would deliver good practice, the report questioned how leaders can effectively assure themselves or ministers that these policies are being delivered and complied with, without more effective processes in place to govern and monitor their implementation. The Government published its response to the Harris Review in December 2015. The response highlighted the need for strong leadership in prisons and offered prison governors more autonomy. 35 The November 2016 white paper Prison Reform and Safety (see below) stated that, following publication of the Harris Review, the Government was reflecting on the treatment of young adult men within the criminal justice system. 31

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Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, Learning from PPO investigations: Self-inflicted deaths of prisoners 2013/14, March 2015: p3 Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, Learning lessons bulletin: Fatal incident investigations issue 8: Segregation, June 2015 Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, Learning from PPO investigations Prisoner mental health., January 2016 The Harris review, Changing Prisons, Saving Lives Report of the Independent Review into Self-inflicted Deaths in Custody of 18-24 year olds, July 2015, p9 MoJ, Government response to the Harris Review into self-inflicted deaths in National Offender Management Service custody of 18-24 year olds, December 2015, p4

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The Justice Committee report The treatment of young adults in the criminal justice system published in October 2016 also included recommendations on prisons. The Committee said that those up to the age of 25 should be included in the sentence of detention in a young offender institution currently available for 18 to 20 year olds.

5.4 Joint Committee on Human Rights – Mental health and deaths in prisons The Joint Committee on Human Rights launched an inquiry to seek to establish whether a human rights based approach can lead to better prevention of deaths in prison of people with mental health conditions. In April 2017 it published Mental Health and Deaths in Prison: Interim Report. The Committee’s inquiry was concluded earlier than planned due to the calling of the 2017 general election and so the Committee did not produce a detailed analysis of the evidence it received nor did it reach final conclusions. The interim report made some specific suggestion for improvements to legislation and also summarised other key themes that emerged from evidence given to the Committee.

5.5 National Audit Office - Mental health in prisons A report from the National Audit Office published in June 2017 noted that rates of self-inflicted deaths and self-harm in prison have risen significantly in the last five years, suggesting that mental health and well-being in prison has declined. The NAO stated that the Government does not know how many people in prison have a mental illness, how much it is spending on mental health in prisons or whether it is achieving its objectives. The report said that if estimates are an accurate reflection of need, then improving the mental health of those in prison will require a step change in effort and resources. The report made a number of recommendations. 36

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National Audit Office, Mental Health in Prisons, 29 June 2017

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6. Assaults 6.1 What lies behind prison violence? In Prisons: Planning and policies, the Justice Committee observed that the Government had said that the prison population had become more challenging, while other witnesses had suggested that violence reduction strategies and procedures had “ebbed away”: The Government stressed the fact that there is a more challenging mix of prisoners than before as a key explanation for operational problems and deteriorating outcomes. Their line was supported by prison governors and directors. Mr O’Connell acknowledged that the prison population changes, with resulting challenges in violence management, had occurred alongside staffing and population pressures. Other witnesses felt that violence reduction measures had weakened. Andrew Neilson said that Inspectorate reports were indicating that good violence reduction strategies and procedures had ebbed away. 37

The Howard League for Penal Reform has argued that rising assaults on staff and prisoners in prison are a consequence of a “dangerous gamble” with public safety: In recent years, the government has taken a big gamble with public safety: cutting prison budgets without cutting prison numbers. This was always going to mean fewer staff in overcrowded prisons and fewer useful activities for prisoners, leaving them cooped up in cells all day with nothing to do. The shameful rise in assaults on staff and prisoners, as well as the increase in self-harm and prisoners taking their lives, is a direct consequence of this policy. To avoid our prisons spiralling dangerously out of control, the Ministry of Justice must now show bold leadership to reform sentencing and reduce the number of people held needlessly behind bars. 38

Professor Alison Liebling, director of the Prisons Research Centre at the University of Cambridge, in evidence to the Justice Committee inquiry on prison reform discussed the impact of the reduction of experienced staff on prison culture and legitimacy. She said: If you do not have enough experienced staff, prisoners run the prison; if you have too many long-serving staff who are no longer motivated, things start to deteriorate. 39

She continued: There needs to be professional competence, a decent regime and meaningful activities. How that works, whether the staff get the role right and whether the prison works as a prison is fundamental. If it is not working as a prison, prisoners feel unsafe; 37

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Justice Committee, Prisons: Planning and Policies, 18 March 2015, HC 309 2014-15, pages 41-2 Howard League for Penal Reform, Media Statement: Prison assaults: The consequence of a dangerous gamble, 30 January 2014 Oral evidence: Prison reform (Governor empowerment and prison performance), HC 548, 18 January 2017, Q216

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they start to take things into their own hands, and they cannot concentrate on their future. 40

New psychoactive substances The 2016 white paper states that new psychoactive substances (NPS) have played a big part in the recent rise in violence. 41 Commentators have been suggesting for some time that mandatory drug testing in prisons has led to more prisoners using new psychoactive substances as they are less likely to be detected. Those NPS can in turn lead to increased violence in prisons, through their mind- and behaviour-altering properties and because trade in them inside the prison can lead to bullying and intimidation. The Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 42introduced a blanket ban on the production, supply, possession with the intent to supply, and import and export, of psychoactive substances. Two amendments were added to the Bill during its passage through Parliament to address the use of psychoactive substances in prisons. Section 6 makes the supply and offer to supply on prison premises a statutory aggravating factor, and section 9 makes the possession of psychoactive substances an offence in custodial institutions (simple possession is generally not an offence under the Act.) The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman in his annual report for 201415, remarked that greater availability of NPS was a threat to safer custody: Compounding these challenges, new threats to safer custody have emerged, such as the greater availability of new psychoactive substances and increased incidents of misbehaviour and violence. 43

In February 2016, HMCIP highlighted the dangers in their inspection report on Ranby prison. The report noted that the trade in NPS was leading to high levels of debt and associated violence. 44 An inspection of HMP Birmingham published in June 2017 said that the safety and stability of the prison were being adversely affected by the high volume of illicit drugs, particularly new psychoactive substances. 45

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Oral evidence: Prison reform (Governor empowerment and prison performance), HC 548, 18 January 2017, Q221 Ministry of Justice, Prison Safety and Reform, Cm 9350, November 2016, p41 The Act came into force on 26 May 2016 Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, Annual report for 2014-15, Cm 9127, September 2015, p7 HMICP, Report on the announced inspection of HMP Ranby: 24–25 August, 1–4 and 7–11 September 2015, February 2016 HMCIP, Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Birmingham, 28 June 2017

18 Prison Safety in England and Wales

6.2 Assaults against staff: Industrial action The Prison Officers’ Association (POA) called in March 2015 for a complete review of health and safety risk assessments and safe systems of work. 46 Section 127 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (as amended) places restrictions on industrial action by prison officers. Nevertheless in May 2016, staff at Wormwood Scrubs reportedly walked out because of safety fears, and the POA General Secretary said: Management and Government cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the drug culture which is making our prisons unsafe. The POA are on record as saying we will protect the health and safety of our members if management and Government fail to do so. 47

Further unofficial walkouts followed, 48 culminating in the Prison Officer Association calling all its members to take part in protest action in November 2016. The POA issued a press release explaining their action: 49 The POA has consistently raised the volatile and dangerous state of prisons, as chronic staff shortages and impoverished regimes has resulted in staff no longer being safe, a lack of discipline and prisoners taking control of areas. The continued surge in violence and unprecedented levels of suicide and acts of self harm, coupled with the recent murder and escapes demonstrate that the service is in meltdown.

The Prison Governors Association had also been in talks with the Ministry about prison safety. In their press notice responding to the POA's action they stated: 50 The pledge of additional officers is obviously welcomed but the Prison Service is losing staff faster than it can recruit them. The challenge of getting new officers into prisons is, consequently, a gargantuan task made more difficult with the current pay restraints. It is crucial, therefore, that decisions are taken now to address the immediate concerns we have raised.

The Ministry of Justice obtained a High Court injunction and the protest ended. 51

Prison Officers Association, Press release: POA give 28 day notice on health and safety improvements for England and Wales prisons, 18 March 2015 47 POA Press Release, Health and safety concerns at Wormwood Scrubs, 6 May 2016 48 See for example, “Prison officers stage unofficial walkouts in England and Wales”, BBC News, 8 July 2016, “Mass strike by prison officers sees 10,000 walk out today as union plans strike over health and safety conditions”, Mirror 49 POA Press Release, POA National Executive reject health and safety proposals, 15 November 2016 50 Prison Governors Association Press Release, POA Protest, 15 November 2016 51 “Prison officers end protest after court order”, BBC News, 15 November 2016 46

The MoJ’s Safety in custody quarterly bulletin published in July 2017 states that there were 7,159 assaults on staff in the 12 months to March 2017, up 1,750 (32%) from the previous year. Of these, 805 were serious assaults, up 25% on the previous period

19 Commons Library Briefing, 10 August 2017

7. Government policy 7.1 Prison Service Instructions Prison Service Instructions (PSIs) outline the rules, regulations and guidelines by which prisons are run. Several are relevant to prison safety, including: •

64/2011 Management of prisoners at risk of harm to self, to others and from others (Safer Custody)

•

07/2015 Early days in custody – Reception in, first night in custody, and induction to custody

7.2 Health services in prison, including mental health and substance misuse services Since April 2013, NHS England has commissioned health services within prisons and young offender institutions in England. In Wales, Local Health Boards commission healthcare services in public sector prisons. 52 Liaison and diversion services seek to identify people who have mental health, learning disability, substance misuse or other vulnerabilities when they come into contact with the criminal justice system. NHS England is currently rolling out a new standard model of liaison and diversion service, with full roll out across England expected by 2020/21. 53 There is a National Partnership Agreement between the National Offender Management Service, NHS England and Public Health England for the co-commissioning and delivery of healthcare services in prisons in England. 54 The agreement sets out the respective roles and objectives of each of these organisations in commissioning, enabling and delivering prison healthcare services (including public health and substance misuse services) NHS England has published a service specification for public health services for people in prison, which sets out requirements and standards for treatment of prisoners with drug or alcohol problems. 55 The November 2016 white paper Prison Safety and Reform (see below) included plans for a joint approach to commissioning health services in

52

53

54

55

See: Healthcare Services for Prisoners (NHS Wales) and Prison Health in Wales (Public Health Wales) Department of Health, Five Year Forward View for Mental Health: government response, 9 January 2017, pp11-12 National Partnership Agreement between: The National Offender Management Service, NHS England and Public Health England for the Co-Commissioning and Delivery of Healthcare Services in Prisons in England 2015-2016 Specification 29 Section 7A Public Health Services for Children and Adults in Secure and Detained Settings in England Public health services for people in prison or other places of detention, including those held in the Children &Young People’s Secure Estate

20 Prison Safety in England and Wales

England, with governors jointly involved in the decision making process alongside local NHS commissioners.

7.3 Protocol on handling crimes in prisons In February 2015, the MoJ, Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Attorney General’s Office announced new rules to deal with violent prisoners, 56 in the form of a joint national protocol between the Prison Service, CPS and Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO 57) on crime committed in prison. 58 Under the protocol, prisoners who commit serious assaults against prison staff will be prosecuted unless there is a good reason not to. In March 2015, the then Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Chris Grayling, answered questions about measures to improve safety on the prison estate and described the role of the protocol: We are committed to delivering safe, decent and secure prisons. Reducing the number of deaths in custody is a key priority, and we are working hard to reduce levels of violence in our prisons. We have introduced a new protocol that will ensure that when there are serious assaults on prison staff, the perpetrators will be prosecuted wherever possible. (…) I hope that [the protocol] will make a big difference to our staff. I pay tribute to prison staff, who do a difficult job. It is particularly difficult at the moment, with an upsurge in violence. A lot of that is due to the prevalence of so-called legal highs—new psychoactive substances—in our prisons. We have taken a number of steps to try to restrict access to those drugs, which are absolutely unacceptable in our prisons. When serious assaults previously took place, prosecutions might not have happened because those people were in jail. Now, they will, and I hope that will be a deterrent. 59

7.4 Additional funding In the first letter of a series of letters responding to the Justice Committee’s report on prison safety of May 2016 the then Justice Secretary Michael Gove announced an additional £10 million to deal with prison safety issues, on top of £5 million to roll out body-worn cameras and additional CCTV. 60 In a second letter dated 30 June 2016, Michael Gove said that the additional £10 million would be supplemented by £2.9 million from

56

57 58

59 60

NOMS, CPS and ACPO, The appropriate handling of crimes in prisons, February 2015 A role now filled by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and College of Policing MoJ, CPS, Attorney General's Office press release, New rules to crack down on violent prisoners come into force, 27 February 2015 HC Deb 17 March 2015 c622-633 Letter dated 19 May 2016 from Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, to Robert Neill MP, Chair, Justice Committee, on the Justice Committee Report on prison safety

21 Commons Library Briefing, 10 August 2017

existing budgets already earmarked for prison safety in 2016-17 but not yet allocated. 61 At the 2016 Conservative Party Conference, the then newly appointed Justice Secretary, Liz Truss, announced an additional £14 million to recruit 400 prison officers: 62 Officers tell me their numbers are stretched too thin. That without more frontline staff who are better deployed, they cannot deliver prisons that are places of safety and reform. (…) So I can announce today we will be giving staff more time to directly supervise offenders. This one-to-one support, which will be rolled out to every prison, is vital in bringing down levels of violence and reforming offenders. (…) We will be investing £14m to provide more than 400 extra staff in prisons that have seen sharp rises in violence in recent years.

In the Autumn Statement on 23 November 2016 the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, announced that he had “exceptionally agreed to provide additional funding to the Ministry of Justice to tackle urgent prison safety issues increasing the number of prison officers by 2,500”. 63 A Treasury policy paper stated: The government will provide up to £500 million of additional funding across the period to the Ministry of Justice. As announced by the Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, as part of the Prison Safety and Reform white paper, this will enable the recruitment of 2,500 extra prison officers to improve prison safety. It will also fund wider reforms to the justice system.

7.5 The white paper: Prison Safety and Reform On 3 November 2016, the Government published its long awaited white paper on prison reform, with the word “safety” in the title. 64 The white paper acknowledged the recent decline in prison safety: 170. Prison safety has declined since 2012. Levels of total assaults across the prison estate and assaults on staff are the highest on record, and are continuing to rise. Comparing the 12 months to June 2016 with the calendar year 2012: 1.

total assaults in prisons increased by 64%;

2.

assaults on staff rose by 99%; and

3.

the number of self-harm incidents increased by 57%.

171. In the 12 months to September 2016, there were 107 selfinflicted deaths in custody, a 75% increase on the 61 self-inflicted deaths during 2012. 65

61

62 63 64 65

Letter dated 30 June 2016 from Rt Hon Michael Gove MP, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, to Robert Neill MP, Chair, Justice Committee, on prison safety Conservative Party, Truss: Prisons: Places of Safety and Reform, 4 October 2016 Autumn Statement 2016: Philip Hammond's speech Ministry of Justice, Prison Safety and Reform, Cm 9350, November 2016 Ministry of Justice, Prison Safety and Reform, Cm 9350, November 2016, p40

22 Prison Safety in England and Wales

The white paper gave an explanation of the increase in violence, selfharm and self-inflicted death. It highlighted factors including shifts in the nature of the prison population, the increased use of psychoactive substances in prisons and the difficulties of running full and purposeful regimes: 172. Our analysis identifies a number of personal and situational factors that have driven this increase in violence, self-harm and self-inflicted deaths since 2012. We know that younger, male prisoners are more likely to be involved in violent incidents, as are those with a history of violent offending as well as current or previous drug use and gang membership. Anti-social attitudes and poor self-control also increase the risk of violence in custody. Longer term shifts in the nature of the prison population are likely to have played some part in the increased violence in the prison estate. In 1993, violence against the person, sexual offences and drug offences together accounted for around two in every five sentenced prisoners (including the recall population). By 2016, this had increased to three in five. 173. More recent developments have made these challenges much harder to manage. Since 2012, the use of psychoactive substances in prisons has risen dramatically, which presents our prison staff with real challenges. Their effects in prisons have made some already dangerous offenders even more volatile, and their reactions more difficult to manage. We know that local prisons with higher rates of drug finds have higher rates of violence. But until this year, there have been no effective tests available to establish whether prisoners have taken these drugs. 174. Dealing with the effects of these substances has made it more difficult for many prisons to run full and purposeful regimes, occupying prisoners in activity to help their journeys to reform. It has made it more difficult for staff to build constructive relationships with prisoners, through which they can combine supervision with helping them to change their behaviour and attitudes. Conflict in prisons can also come about under highly controlling regimes, which prison staff may be forced to impose when they have to manage serious incidents. In turn that leads to frustration if rules are seen as being applied unevenly, or when prisoners do not accept the fairness of staff decisions. 66

The white paper noted steps that had already been taken to address the issue, such as the roll out of body worn video cameras, but noted that these interventions in themselves cannot reverse the trend of worsening safety. The white paper acknowledged that more frontline staff were needed to address prison safety: 176. These changes have come after a period of change for the prison workforce as a result of making efficiencies. The number of Band 2 to 5 frontline operational staff reduced from 29,660 on 31 March 2012 to 23,080 on 31 March 2016. As violence has increased it has become harder to retain existing staff, thus creating a vicious cycle of staff pressure and violence. 177. While it was right to seek to operate prisons more efficiently, the destabilising effect of changes in the operating environment, such as the introduction of new psychoactive substances – 66

Ministry of Justice, Prison Safety and Reform, November 2016, p40

23 Commons Library Briefing, 10 August 2017

described as a ‘game-changer’ by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman – means we must now reconsider staffing levels. Our analysis shows a statistical correlation between the numbers of staff and the level of violent incidents. We now need more frontline staff, and we need to change the way they work to better support offenders and respond to new threats as they arise.

The white paper set out a series of reform proposals, some requiring legislation. For more detail on the white paper see the Commons Library briefing Prison Reform: Recent Developments. Chapter 5 of the white paper focused on safe and secure prisons and summarised the proposals as follows: 39 Governors and staff cannot lead and manage unless they are properly trained and well equipped. We want frontline prison officers and staff to operate not just as security guards and minders but also as mentors – with the time to invest in relationships and run effective interventions. (…) 40 To improve the way that prisoners are managed through the custodial part of their sentence, we will: • give every prisoner a dedicated officer who can engage with them one-to-one; • move responsibility for planning and supporting prisoners from the community to prison governors; and • improve case management in prisons, to co-ordinate the delivery of interventions to the prisoner to increase their effectiveness. 41 These reforms have already been introduced in 10 priority sites, and will be rolled out across the prison estate from April 2017. 42 To tackle the most pressing threats to security in prisons, we will: • introduce legislation, subject to Parliamentary approval, to simplify the framework for testing for psychoactive substances, in order to be more responsive as new substances emerge; • strengthen search capability to stop contraband entering prison and uncover items smuggled in; • fundamentally reassess our wider approach to tackling the supply and demand for drugs in prisons; • reduce supply and demand for illicit mobile devices; and • work with industry and other government departments to detect and block drones from entering the prison estate. 43. To develop a more robust response to criminality in prison, we will: • work closely with the police, Crown Prosecution Service and others across the criminal justice system to ensure a robust and swift approach to tackling criminality in prison; • enhance our intelligence capability by investing £3 million to recruit an extra 50 intelligence staff in early 2017, to work in a new national command supported by regional units; • invest in a number of dedicated Serious and Organised Crime and Gangs teams across the country; • devise and implement a strategy to address staff corruption in 2017, making appropriate links to the cross government Anti-Corruption Strategy being developed following a UK commitment at the London Anti-Corruption Summit in May 2016; and • work with the Home Office to strengthen our response to the risk of radicalisation and extremism in prisons.

24 Prison Safety in England and Wales

7.6 Implementation of reforms Some of the non-legislative proposals announced in the white paper have begun to be implemented. In March 2017 Mr Gymiah wrote to the Committee following his evidence to the Committee on 28 February 2017. An annex to the letter provided the Committee with the first six-monthly update on the Government’s progress on the implementation of its plans on prison safety and reform set out in the Government’s November 2016 white paper. 67 In April 2017 the MoJ announced that a specialist squad of prison and police officers has been formed to tackle the threat drones pose to prison security 68 and that a new unit had been created to combat radicalisation in prisons. 69

The Prisons and Courts Bill 2016/17 The white paper was followed by the introduction of the Prisons and Courts Bill published in February 2017. The Bill contained a number of the reforms set out in the white paper which required legislation. The Bill had second reading in March 2017 but did not complete committee stage, being lost at the dissolution of Parliament in May 2017. The Bill contained provisions concerning, amongst other things disruption of unlawful mobile phone use and testing for new psychoactive substances. On psychoactive substances the Bill provided for testing of any drug in a custodial institution that falls under the definition of ‘psychoactive substance’. This would mean that it would no longer be necessary for specific substances to be added to a list for testing purposes. With regard to prison security and mobile phones, the Bill contained measures to allow the Secretary of State to authorise public communications providers (for example telecoms and internet service providers) to interfere with wireless telegraphy in prisons. For detail regarding the Bill see the Library briefing The Prison and Courts Bill – Prison aspects, 15 March 2017, prepared for second reading. 70

The 2017 Queen’s Speech and an open letter from the Justice Secretary The Conservative party manifesto for the 2017 general election included measures on prison reform. It said:

67 68

69

70

Justice Committee, Letter from Sam Gyimah MP to Bob Neill MP, 28 March 2017 MoJ press release, New squad formed to tackle drone threat to prisons, 17 April 2017 MoJ press release, New Counter-Extremism Taskforce to help tackle extremism behind bars, 2 April 2017 See also the Justice Committee’s report: Prison reform: Part 1 of the Prisons and Courts Bill, 28 April 2017

25 Commons Library Briefing, 10 August 2017

Prisons must become places of safety, discipline and hard work, places where people are helped to turn their lives around. 71

No prison reform legislation was announced in the 2017 Queen’s Speech on 21 June 2017. Some expressed disappointment, including the Chief Inspector of Prisons who called it a missed opportunity. In an open letter published on the same day as the Queen’s Speech the newly appointed Justice Secretary, David Lidington, said that work on prison reform would continue: …as the new Secretary of State, I am committed to building on the essential reforms that are already under way to make prisons places of safety and reform.

He went on to discuss prison staffing: That has to start with the numbers of prison officers available to support offenders. More staff will provide the capacity for them to give more time to directly supervising offenders, through one-toone support from a key worker. This engagement will be a key measure in reducing the currently unacceptable levels of assaults, self-harm and suicides. My predecessor has already secured a £100 million a year investment for an extra 2,500 prison officers. The most recent figures show the number of prison officers in post has increased by 515 compared with the previous quarter and we are on track to deliver all 2,500 prison officers by December 2018. They will join thousands of dedicated and hard-working prison officers who undertake such important work, day in day out, to keep our prisons and the public safe.

Regarding prison security he talked about measures to tackle drugs, drones and mobile phones: On drugs, we have introduced testing for psychoactive substances across the estate, the first jurisdiction in the world to do so. We have also trained more than 300 dogs to detect these substances, and have introduced tough new laws to deal with people smuggling the substances into prison. On drones, we are working with the police to catch and convict criminals using drones to smuggle contraband into prisons. We have also established a new team of prison and police officers to directly tackle the threat posed by drones. On mobile phones, we are working with mobile network operators to tackle illicit use of phones. We have now fitted out every single prison across the estate with hand-held mobile phone detectors and detection poles to step up the detection of illegal phones on the landings. More than 150 mobile phones have been cut off since the introduction of new powers through the Serious Crime Act.

71

Conservative Party, Forward Together: The Conservative and Unionist Party Manifesto 2017

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BRIEFING PAPER Number CBP07467 10 August 2017

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