Ex-squaddies to be turned into prison officers to take back control in troubled jails
Justice Secretary Liz Truss will announce the new measures tomorrow at the Conservative Party Conference
HUNDREDS of former squaddies are to be drafted in by the Government to bring “discipline” to Britain’s most violent jails.
Justice Secretary Liz Truss will tomorrow unveil a new nationwide campaign to recruit former armed forces personnel as she admits prison officers are currently “stretched too thin”.
The recruitment drive will come on top of the hiring of 400 new prison officers to help stamp out the designer drugs epidemic in ten most challenging jails.
It follows figures which revealed a record 5,000 guards were attacked by lags last year – a 36 per cent increase.
Some 620 of the attacks were ‘serious assaults’.
Speaking at the Tory Party conference, Ms Truss will say there is no one better than ex-troops to “instil the virtues of discipline.”
She will add: “Who better to show what you can achieve in life with courage and integrity. They will help our prison officers lead the change.”
The package of measures marks the biggest recruitment drive since George Osborne’s austerity programme in 2010.
It will mean every prison officer supervising just six prisoners in jails such as Chelmsford, Leeds, Nottingham and Liverpool.
Ms Truss will say: “Officers tell me their numbers are stretched too thin and without more frontline staff who are better deployed, they cannot deliver prisons that are places of safety and reform.
“They’ve told me this and I listened.”
Prison officer unions and campaign groups have demanded action for the past three years given an explosion in the use of so-called ‘legal highs’ behind bars.
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Designer drugs such as Spice or Mamba have been smuggled in by lags’ relatives and even flown over prison walls by drone.
More than a kilo of designer drugs were seized at HMP Lindholme in just one month earlier this summer.
The Howard League for Penal Reform said figures for the first three months of 2016 revealed a prisoner was dying every day from violence attacks or suicide.