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‘Scary’ overcrowded jails blasted by prison officers and inmates as gang fights soar
HMP Pentonville was originally built to house just 520 but is currently almost at its capacity of 1,205
PRISON officers and inmates have told of how violence, gang wars and self harm are all on the rise behind bars as prisons struggle to cope with overcrowded conditions.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun from inside HMP Pentonville, staff and prisoners gave an honest account of how the packed jail is coping with only a handful of empty cells.
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Guards said they were hopeful that the upcoming early release scheme, which will see thousands of prisoners freed next week, will free up enough space to improve conditions.
When The Sun visited the north London jail on Tuesday there were only nine free spots out of possible 1,205. It was originally built to house just 520 men.
'POSTCODE WARS'
Prisoners revealed that postcode battles between rival gangs are spilling over into prisons with officers unable to keep opposing groups apart due to overcrowding.
Inmate Mark Blower, 32, has been in Pentonville for seven months as he awaits his sentencing date, and said he can “see the prison getting fuller and fuller by the day”.
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Speaking to The Sun from inside his cramped shared cell he said: “It's just like a Ferris wheel that never stops. People are coming in and out every day and you can just see it getting fuller and fuller.
“There's hardly any TVs, maybe no kettles going around, no bedding for stuff because how many people are just coming in every day.
“It's getting quite scary and quite mad how full it's getting. You've got all different members of different areas coming in. So you've got different postcodes coming in. You can just sometimes feel the tension in the air.”
Over the bank holiday weekend the prison, dubbed ‘The Ville’, received 78 people over a three day period.
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Each cell of the category B prison, originally built in 1842, is now double occupancy with inmates using bed sheets as makeshift curtains.
CHAOS BEHIND BARS
Some days general alarms can sound 30 times inside the prison with The Sun joining officers as they attended a Code Red alert - with an inmate cutting his wrists inside his small cell.
Another prisoner was seen refusing to move cells after a fight broke out between warring gangs on a packed wing of the Victorian jail.
One officer, who did not want to be named, bravely told how she had returned to work just days after being headbutted by a violent offender who had turned on her when she refused to give him an extra kettle as supplies were too low.
Fellow prison officer Sacha Berg, 24, joined the service straight out of university on a graduate scheme and explained how their hands are currently tied when trying to cope with outbreaks of violence.
She said: “When the capacity is at such high pressure, violence increases, you don't have a lot of buffer room, because say for example an incident happens, and two prisoners have fought we have very minimal spaces to separate them and keep them apart, so it has been testing.
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“When it's busy, when we're at that operational capacity, there's just not many places for that pressure to go, and most of it ends up coming out in the form of violence.
“As officers we are on the front line and we have to be the first on scene to do what we have to do to de-escalate it.”
Michael Lewis, 38, is six months into an eight year and three month sentence for drugs offences.
He told The Sun: “There’s a lot of gang violence, a lot of fights. You get a lot of people who are frustrated.
“There are alarms going off every day. You get used to it. After a few weeks it’s just the norm.
“My old cell mate tried to hang himself. It was pot luck that I woke up, it was two o’clock in the morning, I woke up and looked behind me where the toilet was and saw him hanging.
“I jumped up and sat him on my shoulder and rang the alarm.
Asked about how bad the gang wars had gotten inside the jail, he said: “If they're on the same wing and they meet, there's going to be some sort of violence. It's just stupid but it is getting bad.
“It is getting bad. People can't move to certain wings or jails in fear for their life because they've got problems with other people. Or they're friends of somebody that's got problems with other people.”
FULL TO BURSTING
Governing Governor of Pentonville Simon Drysdale said that the lack of space was causing escalating existing problems in the system.
He said: “It makes it harder to get people into purposeful activity and all of that can create frustration in the system. and when there's frustration in the system that's when we can see instability and violence as a consequence.”
Officers in the London jail’s Offender Management Unit explained in candid detail how staff worked overtime to recalculate thousands of inmate’s sentences and ensure no sex offenders and domestic abusers were included in the tranche set for early release.
Thousands of prisoners are due to be released on Tuesday as part of a policy designed to tackle overcrowding in UK jails.
Pentonville is only due to release eight prisoners on September 10, as most of their inmates are on remand, but other London prisons will be letting out much higher numbers.
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Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood has estimated that around 5,500 offenders will be included in the scheme which means criminals, including some violent offenders, only serve 40 per cent of their sentences behind bars.
The Ministry of Justice has admitted this week that some serious offenders will be released as part of the policy, despite previously saying they were not eligible.
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