Prisoners are developing drug problems in jail, leaving the public at greater risk when they are released, an inspection report has found.
Inspectors visiting HMP Lindholme found 21 per cent of the prisoners in the South Yorkshire jail had developed a dependency on drugs since being locked up. Half of the 898 prisoners at the all-male category C prison said it was easy to get drugs, with drones being used to bring them in.
Drugs were also responsible for prisoners’ debt problems, which in turn fuelled higher than average levels of violence.
HM Inspector of prisons Charlie Taylor said that the rife substance abuse issues meant that prisoners were not being rehabilitated in jail, but were instead being released into the community at a heightened risk to the public.
Mr Taylor said: “This was a really worrying inspection of a prison fundamentally failing to deliver this with some potentially very dangerous men, and arguably allowing the risks to heighten by failing to get on top of a really serious drug problem.”
Referring to new plans from the Ministry of Justice to ease overcrowding, he added: “This would be worrying in any circumstances, but given plans to begin releasing prisoners early it is absolutely essential that the prison service takes action to make sure that people’s time in custody effectively reduces the risk of harm that they will pose on release.”
Justice secretary Alex Chalk has said that the government will use powers to allow the prison service to let some prisoners out of jail up to 18 days early in a bid to ease overcrowding.
According to the latest government statistics, there is a prison population of 88,126 - just 764 spaces away from operational capacity.
At HMP Lindholme, inspectors found that there had been 147 prisoner-on-prisoner assaults and 62 prisoner-on-staff assaults in the past year. Staff also failed to challenge low-level rule breaking, such as vaping or abusive language.
Aroud 20 prisoners were self-isolating at the time of the inspection in July because of debt problems or because they wanted to avoid drugs on the wings.
Prisoners said that drugs were also being brought in by staff, and yet there were no increased searches of staff or visitors in place.
A court heard last week that a prison health worker at Lindholme had “flooded” the jail with drugs by smuggling packages to her inmate lover. The affair was at the heart of a large prison drug smuggling ring, Sheffield Crown Court heard. 17 people are being sentenced for their roles in the operation.
The prison health worker, Amy Hatfield, was arrested in 2019 after officers stopped her entering the prison with MDMA, cannabis, Ribena bottles filled with spice, as well as other contraband.
The trial comes after a HMP Lindholme prisoner, Kyle Batsford, died in September 2019 when he was forced to test the drug spice to test its potency.
The inquest heard that the drug was prevalent in the prison and some prisoners encouraged vulnerable inmates to smoke the drug to test its effects.
Andrea Coomber KC, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “The lack of support available in overcrowded Lindholme is so desperate that men are developing drug problems while living in the prison.
“Where there is drug abuse, there is also debt and violence.” She called for more “purposeful activity” such as education, training and exercise to be provided to the prisoners so that they do not have to turn to drug use.
A Prison Service spokesperson said: "We are taking decisive action to address the serious issues raised in this report including bolstering security and drug detection technology to clamp down on the contraband which fuels violence behind bars.
"We are also improving staff training to support the most vulnerable prisoners and increasing access to education to ensure offenders get the right skills to turn their backs on crime.”
