HMP HEWELL is hoping to see an increase in staffing levels after an extra £100m was made available nationwide annually to strengthen frontline prison officers numbers.
An extra 2,500 prison staff are to be recruited countrywide to tackle soaring levels of violence, drug abuse and attacks on staff and inmates inside prisons across the UK.
The news comes after plans to hold a protest outside the prison on Wednesday (November 1) against the levels of violence were postponed following talks between Justice Secretary Liz Trust and the Prison Officers Association (POA).
Ms Truss said: “These extra officers and new safety measures will help us crack down on the toxic cocktail of drugs, drones and mobile phones that are flooding our prisons, imperilling the safety of staff and offenders and thwarting reform.”
Representing a major shake-up of the prisons system, new measures will also include giving governors more powers over education, work and health. They will also be held to account on an agreed set of a standards with prisons’ annual performance and if a prison is shown to be failing then the Secretary of State will have a new legal duty to intervene.
The latest prison safety figures show that assaults on staff and inmates have risen in the past year to around 65 a day with record levels of prison suicides and self-harm.
Meanwhile the death rate in prisons in England and Wales has risen to almost one a day – a record high of 324 in the 12 months.
Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “The Ministry of Justice is presiding over a bloodbath of assaults, suicides and self-injury in prisons. “Cutting staff and prison budgets while allowing the number of people behind bars to grow unchecked has created a toxic mix of violence, death and human misery.”
