The plans to recategorise prisoners into higher-security prisons based on their continuing risk of criminality in jail, rather than their original sentence, are to be outlined in Gauke’s first speech on tackling the prisons crisis in England and Wales.
The government is spending £14m on tackling organised criminal gangs in prisons, including on creating a serious organised crime unit within the Prison Service.
Prison governors have said organised crime gangs have gained a substantial foothold in jails and in some instances have greater authority and control than staff.
Mitch Albutt, national officer of the Prison Governors Association (PGA), recently described how organised crime gangs had built a lucrative trade in psychoactive drugs inside jails based on coercion, beatings and violence that could turn substances worth £200 on the street into £2,000 profits in prison.
“This pervasive environment of threats and violence exposes individuals’ vulnerabilities, resulting in increased levels of self-harm, suicide and requests for segregation or transfer,” Albutt wrote in the latest PGA newsletter.
Gauke will announce an initiative to crack down on these serious organised criminal gangs that operate outside and increasingly inside prisons. The prison service estimates that more than 6,500 of the 86,000-strong prison population have links to organised crime gangs.
“We are taking action to bolster our defences at the prison gate and going after the organised criminal gangs,” Gauke will say. “I want them to know that as a result of the action we are taking, they have no place to hide. Through our covert and intelligence-led operations, we will track them down.”
Source: theguardian
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